Nine To Five
by Lampito
Summary: The Winchesters have finished up a job, cleaning up after somebody's stupidity in dabbling with the occult - again. So now they're broke - again. They've never expected Hunting to be a glamorous occupation, but just once, just once, Dean would like some sort of recognition (and remuneration) for the public service they provide. And then... oh dear. And who the hell is Harry?
1. Chapter 1

Oh, ferf huck's sake, Jackie-Joy the plot bunny dictating 'Old Dogs, Old Tricks' has gone coy again - and this little... wretch has sunk its teeth into my leg. Damned plot bunnies. I hate them all. The only way to exorcise the miserable things is to give them an airing, and see if they will dictate further chapters. So for now, this bunny (whose name may be Frederika. Or possibly Montgomery) suggests the working title of...

**NINE TO FIVE**

**Rating: **T. Because Dean and words.

**Summary:** The Winchesters have wrapped up a job cleaning up after somebody else's stupidity - again. They're broke - again. And sleeping in the car - again. At least there are sandwiches for dinner. They've never expected Hunting to be a glamorous lifestyle, but occasionally, just occasionally, Dean wishes that they could get some sort of recognition and reward for the public service they provide. Well, besides sandwiches. And then... oh dear. And who the hell is Harry?

**Blame:** No doubt lies with The Denizens of the Jimiverse, who breed plot bunnies and sic them onto me. You relentless harridans.

**Disclaimer:** They're not mine - if they were, I'd put them in a Get-Along Shirt, slap them upside the heads, and tell them to grow the fark up. (Then I'd rent them out by the hour to the Denizens and retire on the proceeds.)

* * *

><p><span><strong>Chapter One<strong>

Sam pinched the bridge of his nose, and prayed for patience as the tear-stained woman before them sniffled her way through the rambling explanation for what a character from one of his favourite authors would have called 'paddlin' with the occult'. He tried to take inspiration from his big brother, who stood, teeth clenched, obviously wishing that he could just slap the individual before them. Although it probably made sense, he thought: Dean had pissed off so many witches they'd met, it was probably cosmic comeuppance that one day he would meet one who'd piss him off right back.

"A-and, a-and, I just wanted to help," snivelled the young woman, dabbing at her eyes with a hankie that had become so soaked with mascara that it resembled a crumpled bat when she flapped it out, fruitlessly looking for a dry spot, "A-and, a-and, I thought I could help people…"

"Leslie," Sam sighed, "Sometimes, sad things happen to ordinary people, who really don't deserve it. It's just the random motion of the universe – it's all just part of life. Things happen, and people have to pick up, and carry on. It's part of being human. It happens to everybody, sooner or later."

"If had my way, it'd be happenin' to this moron right now," Dean muttered under his breath for his brother's ears only.

"But Mrs Brayson was so sad!" wailed Leslie, wringing her much-abused handkerchief, "The Braysons were married for sixty years! She missed her husband so much!"

"Of course she did," Sam told her soothingly, "But elderly people die, it's natural for all living things to age and die. There was absolutely no reason for you to try to bring him back!"

"I just didn't want her to be lonely!" Leslie hiccupped.

"Did you stop to wonder whether he wanted to come back, huh?" demanded Dean. "There he was, with a terminal illness, he died peacefully at home, went wherever he was supposed to go, and then suddenly, whammo!"

"Whammo?" queried Sam.

"Whammo," repeated Dean grimly, "Back in his body that was not only still riddled with cancer, but was in even worse shape than when he vacated the premises."

"But Mrs Brayson didn't mind!" protested Leslie, "She said she enjoyed cooking his favourite Sunday roast for him again! He hadn't been able to eat it for months before he died!"

"He might've been able to eat it," Sam pointed out, "But he wasn't able to retain it. Not with his internal organs decomposed."

"You saw the stains on her rug," Dean frowned at her. "Proper gravy leaves terrible stains."

"He did always say he couldn't resist gravy on his roast potatoes, even though it went straight through him," Leslie volunteered.

"The thing is," Sam began, hanging onto his exasperation as it strained at the leash, "When somebody says, 'Oh, I can't eat that, it'll go straight through me', they mean that it'll upset their stomach, not that it will literally drop straight to the floor because they don't have any body left there to catch it!"

"But little Annie missed Brodie so much!" Leslie erupted into gales of tears again.

"Having your pets die is one of life's lessons," Dean stated. "When you have pets, you're always gonna outlive them. It's one o' the ways kids learn about life, and death."

"Given that they already had a new pet, it wasn't a good idea, even in theory," Sam said firmly.

"But Brodie and Ginny played together!" yipped Leslie.

"No, Leslie," Sam rolled his eyes, "Brodie chased Ginny mercilessly until she had some sort of nervous fit. Ginny is a rabbit. Brodie was a greyhound. What did you think would happen?"

"It's just a good thing that he'd lost his lower jaw," humphed Dean, "Or we'd have to have laid the unquiet spirit of a damned rabbit to rest, as well as an undead dog."

"But he was happy to be back!" said Leslie, "He was definitely happy to be back!"

"Maybe," Sam conceded, "If the way he kept wagging his tail until it fell right off was any indication, sure, but that doesn't make it right…"

But Mr Scoby was so upset when his greenhouse burned down!" yowled Leslie, "He lost all his prize-winning orchids! They were his passion, those orchids! He established new ones!"

"Well, plants die too," Sam said, "That's natural as well."

"Although if somebody wanted to take a new and authentic production of 'Little Shop Of Horrors' on tour, one of them things woulda been a shoe-in for the part of Twoie," griped Dean, "Do you have any idea how much ammo I had to use to take the damned thing out? A triffid would've been easier to kill!"

"And I just wanted to help with the computer fundraiser at the grade school," Leslie sniffled again, "It's really important for kids to learn about how to use technology."

"It is," Sam agreed, "However, when you tried to help with the 'A Tablet For Every Child' fundraiser, your context was clearly incorrect."

"I thought the guy handin' 'em out looked just like Charlton Heston, you know," mused Dean, "And the things written on 'em? 'Thou shalt not give thy parents sass', 'Thou shalt not drink straight from the carton', 'Thou shalt not leave thy dirty clothes on the bathroom floor', 'Thou shalt not lie about brushing thy teeth', good rules for kids."

"But not written on slabs of granite," added Sam. "Two of them got broken toes dropping them!"

"And the less said about the local volunteer group who work in that park, the better," stated Sam.

"They were trying so hard to fix it," moaned Leslie, "They'd be there, pulling up dandelions and thistles and all sorts of nasty things, replanting with native vegetation, but it was a losing battle, and they tried so hard just to make the park a nice place to be…"

"Leslie, the name of the group is 'Need To Weed'," Sam reminded her, "Not 'Need _For _Weed'."

"At least they were happy for a while," Leslie mumbled defiantly.

"Anybody that stoned would be happy for a while," Dean commented.

"It was an easy mistake to make!" pouted Leslie.

"Tell that to the owner of the corner store they scoured like a plague of locusts when the munchies hit afterwards," snapped Dean.

Sam put a hand on his brother's shoulder. "Look, Leslie," he began, "The thing is, just because you can do something, doesn't mean you should."

"Especially if, actually, you can't," griped Dean.

"I just wanted to help," Leslie repeated in a small voice, looking longingly at the ageing yellowed book, "Grandma always said that you should help people if you can."

"Your grandmother was clearly a powerful witch," Sam told her, "And from the look of her book, she only used to do good things. But not to mess with the natural order. Not to try to fix all people's problems for them."

"She was so good at it," Leslie sniffled some more, "She always knew exactly what to do, and how to make stuff work, and I thought, well, if it runs in the family…"

"It doesn't," Dean stated bluntly. "It does not run in the family. Leslie, I'm sorry to have to tell you this, but you have no occult talent at all. If anything, you have an anti-talent. If your grandmother had been a champion swimmer, you would be doin' competitive drowning at Olympic standard."

Sam gave his brother a glare, and tried to soften the blow. "I'm afraid he may be onto something," he said a bit more tactfully, "Just because your grandmother was a talented witch, that doesn't mean that you will automatically be one too."

"It's true," nodded Dean, "Our old man was a mechanic, but Sam here, he can't tell a radiator from a washer bottle without a manual, a full schematic of the engine and a laptop to google it…"

"But you don't have to be a witch to be a good person and help others," Sam assured her, shooting his brother a searing _Bitchface_ #8™ (You Are Now Officially Talking Complete Shit, Dean), "You can do perfectly ordinary things, like join a charity kitchen, or volunteer at an animal shelter, or visit the elderly…"

"Without attempting to resurrect any of their spouses," mumbled Dean.

Sam kicked his brother in the ankle. "So, I'm afraid we're gonna have to get rid of the grimoire," he told her.

"Nooooo!" Leslie wailed anew, "It was my Grandma's!"

"It's a loose nuke," Dean said sternly, "If one of Saddam Hussein's kids had said 'Oh, you can't decommission that nerve gas plant, it belonged to my Dad!' would you let 'em keep it?"

"What if I promise not to use it?" she asked hopefully.

Leslie, even if you didn't use it, somebody else might," Sam cut in, seeing Dean's patience stretching to the point where he was about to throw in diplomacy and go for the shock and awe phase, "It's not safe for it to exist, now that your grandmother isn't around to, you know, be its guardian."

With more tears and more running make-up, Leslie handed over the book. "What will you do with it?" she asked.

"We'll show it to a friend of ours who's real good at defusing occult UXO," answered Sam, "He'll make it safe, and know how to dispose of it without blowing anything up, so to speak."

"Okay, then," humphed Dean, "Undead husband, dog and orchids laid back to rest, Charlton Heston lookalike dismissed, environmental group detoxed, washing machine relieved of self-awareness, car with self-esteem issues counselled back to non-sentience, and all of those My Little fucking Ponies turned back into plastic dolls..."

"Lewd broomstick turned back into simple inanimate cleaning object," added Sam.

"I kinda thought that one was funny," Dean mused, "Had a hell of a mouth on him, that broom."

"It was supposed to be a broom I could ride like a witch," Leslie defended lamely. "I wanted a flying broom, not a talking broom that thought it was some sort of sex toy!"

"You never paid attention during history, did you?" Sam tutted in disgust.

"… Talking cat silenced, Winchester funds depleted to fucking broke to get the ingredients to fix the damned spells gone wrong, gas tank almost empty, job done, fuck our life," finished Dean. "I'm not gettin' paid enough to do this damned job. I'm not gettin' paid at all, except in aggravation. Evil I can fight against on general principles, but stupidity? It's a losing battle. It's like an ostrich farm, you could pour all your money and energy into it and still come up broke. Screw gravity, stupidity is the strongest force in the universe."

"Actually, gravitational force is the weakest of the four fundamental interactions," commented Sam, "The strong nuclear force is the most…"

"Shut up, Einstein," griped Dean, scrubbing a hand over his face and turning back to Leslie. "Look, I know you're not evil, but every time somebody like you messes with stuff they really don't understand, Hunters have to fix the problems. There are enough things out there that need Hunters to deal with 'em, without people makin' more damned problems. So just, no more, okay?"

"Okay," Leslie agreed in a small voice, watching her grandmother's book, "So, uh, maybe I could, you know, make you lunch?" She looked into their suspicious faces. "As in, sandwiches? With bread and butter and fillings and stuff? And absolutely no magic whatsoever?"

With a resigned sigh, Dean found a rueful smile. "Yeah, lunch would be good," he nodded, his stomach rumbling after the meagre breakfast of granola bar that had been all that the Winchester finances had been able to afford.

"Okay then," Leslie smiled, and began to forage through her refrigerator. "I got ham, and some turkey, oh, and some roast beef, will that be okay?"

"Lay it on me," declared Dean, seating himself at the kitchen table, "You got any lettuce?"

"Yeah, you want it shredded?"

"Oh, it's not for me," Dean waved a hand airily, "It's for Sam. A gigantic shaggy rabbit his size eats a hell of a lot of lettuce."

"Jerk."

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><p>Ah, Dean, the prospect of being fed always improves his demeanour. His Deanmeanour. Ha ha ha. Oh, Cas, I need another cup of tea...<p>

Incidentally, this is the bunny that couldn't decide between evil!Ronnie and amorous!Ronnie. Feel free to make your suggestions as to which one the bun should use. In the meantime, send reviews, because they are the Delicious Sandwiches Made By Somebody Else For You At The Lunchtime Of Life!


	2. Chapter 2

EEEEEEEEEE I'm playing on my new netbook thingy EEEEEEEEEE and I got it up an running without adult help EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

I'm not difficult to entertain.

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><p><span><strong>Chapter Two<strong>

It turned out that Leslie might be a dead loss as a practitioner of occult arts, but she made a damned good sandwich, brewed very good coffee, and baked completely adequate brownies. The Winchesters suggested that she give up the pursuit of witchcraft and instead consider a career working in a lunch bar somewhere. She made them a packet of sandwiches to take with them, thanked them again for their help, and waved them goodbye.

"Don't plug that thing in," griped Dean, as Sam went to plug his laptop's charger into the Impala's cigarette lighter, "We're runnin' out of gas as it is."

"How am I supposed to find our next job if I don't charge the damned laptop?" demanded Sam.

"There won't be any next job until we're solvent again," his big brother said grimly, "The cards are maxed out, I got some loose change, and we're eatin' sandwiches for dinner."

"Great," muttered Sam.

"They're pretty good sandwiches," Dean reminded him. "And if you're really hungry, I'm sure that Jimi will share some of his kibble with you, right, J-Man?" The dog in the back seat whuffed and wagged his tail. "It'll make your hair shiny, and clean your teeth, and your little nose will be wet and cold..."

"Jerk," muttered Sam. "So, what's the plan from here?" he asked, screwing up his nose at the thought of eating dog food and almost completely sure that his brother had been joking.

"We gotta find a bank of parking meters," Dean replied, "We hit the meters, then we hit a bank in the next town to change it, we get together a stake, we hustle some pool, we find a poker game…"

"Will anywhere let us in before we shower?" asked Sam, sniffing at himself.

"It'll have to wait until we can pay for a room," Dean told him glumly. "Damn it, I seriously am not gettin' paid enough to deal with morons who mess with things they don't understand and can't control! There should totally be a law against it."

"If you're gonna make stupidity illegal, they'll have to lock up a good proportion of the population," Sam snorted. "Possibly starting with you."

"Shut up, bitch," Dean griped as his stomach rumbled again. "Seriously, although hardly anybody knows about it, we perform a valuable public service! Surely the least that a grateful humanity could do would be to give us a bonus from time to time?"

'Like what?" asked Sam, curious.

"I don't know," Dean waved a hand vaguely, "A charge card from the Vatican? A lifetime pass to a chain of steak houses? Or a voucher for a motel room that's at least two stars, anything. Free pie every time we stop at a roadhouse would be good." He let out a sigh. "Sorry, Jimi," he patted the dog's head as Jimi pushed his big earnest face over the seat at his Alpha's tone, "No wings tonight. The cupboard is bare."

The mournful look that Jimi gave him was as evocative as that of a Dickensian street urchin being told that there wasn't even gruel for dinner, it would be fried mud again.

Dean found a sheltered spot to park the Impala for the night, and they shared a meal of sandwiches before settling to spend yet another night sleeping in the car.

"At least it's not cold," Sam pointed out, wiggling on the back seat.

"Yeah, we've had worse," Dean agreed ruefully, the familiar smell of his Baby's interior surrounding him as he patted the seat under his head. "We'll always have you, won't we, girl?"

"Are you talking to the car? Again?"

"Absolutely. Sometimes it's the only way I can get a rational conversation."

"Whuff!"

"Sorry, Jimi, I can get a pretty good conversation outta you, too."

"Jerk."

"Well, Baby and I have so much to talk about," Dean grinned into the fading light. "So much to reminisce about. Any car belonging to the Living Sex God is gonna have a whole heap of stories to tell."

"Thank fuck cars can't talk then," said Sam shortly.

"Oh, but if she could, think of the education you could get as we drive along," Dean's grin was practically audible, "That seat where you're lyin' has seen plenty of action, you know."

"Oh, God, I really don't want to think about what you've been doin' back here while I'm trying to go to sleep…"

"Seriously, what's happened back there, it's amazing that the stories don't kind of just seep out of the upholstery and into your dreams."

"I do _not _want to think about _anything_ seeping out of this seat, you disgusting creature!"

"Of course, if that does happen, and you start to have enjoyable dreams, I'll understand if you start humpin' the seat back there."

"Oh, gross!"

"If it all gets, you know, _too_ interesting, though, you go out and hide in the bushes if you gotta…"

"_Dean!"_

The bickering gradually trailed off, then the Impala was silent except for the occasional gentle snore, or lavender-scented half-Hellhound fart.

**...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... **

Leslie couldn't sleep. She felt a dreadful sense of guilt, not only for the spells she'd completely screwed up, but for having dragged a pair of Hunters into her screw-ups. They led a hard life, she knew, her grandmother had told her all about them: Hunting down monsters, and fighting demons, getting hurt and usually dying young, and they didn't get any recognition for the job they did, and certainly no recompense. If you ever meet Hunters, her grandmother had said, do whatever you can to help them.

What had she done? Made sandwiches. And in Leslie's opinion, nobody, ever, should have to eat nothing but sandwiches for dinner.

"It's not fair," she whispered to herself, "It really isn't fair." Her eyes fell on the picture of her grandmother that she kept on a bookcase. "What would you have done, Grandma?"

_Do whatever you can to help them._

Face set with determination, Leslie headed for her room, and dug around in the top drawer of the dresser until she found a pendant set with a dull round stone. With a smile, she sat down on her bed, and gazed lovingly at the jewellery that her Grandma had bequeathed her. She was sure she could use this. After all, Grandma had been as sharp as a tack until the day she died; she wouldn't have left it with Leslie if she thought she couldn't handle it, would she?

A look of intense concentration on her face, Leslie began to whisper to the pendant until the stone began to glow with a metallic blue light.

**...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... **

Dean swam muzzily back towards wakefulness, vaguely aware that his face was stuck to the seat underneath it. He gave a small silent apology to his Baby if he'd drooled on her, and rolled over. Sunlight beat at his eyelids, and he screwed up his face, not in a hurry to wake up.

"Winchester!"

The voice barking his name caused him to jump in startlement.

Which resulted in him falling right off the sofa he had been sleeping on.

"Did you pull another all-nighter, idjit?" demanded the voice.

Dean blinked in bewilderment, his brain trying desperately to synch with his eyes and his mouth. "Bo… Bobby?" He did a double-take and wondered if he was dreaming.

The sofa he'd apparently been asleep on was in some sort of office.

Bobby was not wearing a trucker's cap.

But he was wearing a suit.

"Just don't you go hasslin' me for overtime, Harry," the old man grinned, "Now go clean up before the bean-counters get here. You stink."

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><p>Oh dear. Whatever next? To find out, feed the plot bunny reviews, because Reviews are the Comfy Couches In The Offices Of Life!<p> 


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three**

_Nyaaaaaaaaaag_

That was exactly the noise his brain made as he sat staring up at Bobby, Dean decided. _Nyaaaaaaaaaag._

"Nyaaaaaaaaaag," he said.

Bobby rolled his eyes. "Jesus, Dean, there aint no point in tryin' to talk to you until you've had coffee, is there?" he sighed. "You're all the same. Go on Harry, go get something to eat, make yourself more or less human." He chuckled. "And don't expect me to sign off on overtime just because you're still here on a day off." Muttering to himself about being beset by idjits, Bobby left the room, closing the door behind him.

Dean scrambled to his feet, looking around. In the course of his Hunting career, he'd been in lots of offices. He recognised this one as being occupied by somebody who only used it under sufferance: there were documents piled haphazardly on the desk and the floor, the trash bin was overflowing, and a stack of pizza boxes teetered in one corner. A large rubber lizard perched on top of the computer monitor, which had what appeared to be a small surface-to-air missile launcher next to it. A large Nerf weapon leaned against the side of the desk. Several maps adorned one wall, along with a couple of band posters and a picture of a 1967 Chevrolet Impala.

As he looked around, it occurred to him that, if he had to have an office, it would probably look like that.

_Sam._

The thought of his brother propelled him out the door that Bobby had used. It led to a corridor.

As he burst out of the office, his little brother popped out of the next door along like his mirror image, wearing exactly the same bewildered expression as his own face.

"Sam!"

"Dean!" Sam looked around him at the unremarkable corridor. "What the fuck? Where are we?"

"I… I got no idea," Dean stuttered, also looking around. "But it looks like a hallway."

"Genius," Sam gave him a fleeting _Bitchface_ #8™ (You Are Now Officially Talking Complete Shit, Dean). "What I meant was, what the hell is this place? I just woke up in a damned office!"

"Me too," said Dean, heading for the door Sam had emerged from.

It was another office, but the antithesis of the one he'd found himself in: the desk was tidy, with documents stacked in a number of trays, and a carefully stowed assortment of stationery items. The PC on the desk had three monitors, a couple of thin client connections and other gizmos that Dean didn't recognise. The bookshelves were full of an eclectic mix of ancient manuscripts and more modern tomes. There was a recycling bin next to the trash. The wall held the same well-used maps as where he'd woken up, as well as a large easel pad of butcher's paper, on which were scribbled various occult symbols. Another wall held a beautifully composed photograph with an inspiring and uplifting slogan beneath it.

Dean moved to the bookcase, and began to read some of the book titles. "What the…? 'Herding Cats: Managing People Who Don't Think They Need To Be Managed'. 'The Thin Ink Line: Management In The Combat Zone'. 'Lead, Follow Or Get Out Of The Way – Management From The Front'. 'Damn The Torpedoes: Lead From The Front, Manage From Behind'…?" He looked around in horror. "Oh – my – God…"

"What? What?" went Sam, looking around.

Dean swallowed. "Sam," he announced, "This," his gesture took in everything, "This, it's the office of a neat freak, an obsessive-compulsive, a dude who reads too much and thinks too much and takes it all too seriously. And has no sex life…"

"Huh?" Sam looked mystified.

"There's a poster of a puppy on the goddamned wall, Sam," Dean tried to keep the shrillness out of his voice, "This is an office with a poster of a puppy on the wall, and one of those posters that is supposed to be motivational although it makes normal people want to kick some asshole in a suit for bein' a smug patronising dick, and, and, these," he indicated the management books with a gesture that managed to convey the disgust most people would invoke when pointing out dog crap on a lawn, "This is the office of somebody who's got with the program. Somebody who's goin' places. Somebody who's drunk the Kool-Aid from the company chiller." He turned a horrified expression to his brother. "This is your office, Sam."

"What?" Sam whatted again, looking around. "Dean, it's just an office!" He considered the room. "It's kind of organised, and the composition of that photo had quite a lot of thought put into it, if you look at it…"

Dean elbowed him aside, and headed for the opposite wall. There were a number of documents in plain frames tucked away behind the door.

"Sam, look at these."

They were citations awarded to one Samuel Winchester.

"Uh," gawped Sam, "It… it is my office." He peered at the unassuming certificates. "And these are from the, uh, Federal Office of Occult Control, Elimination and Redaction." He blinked. "The what?"

"There's more," Dean told him grimly, "I woke up when Bobby came in and yelled at me."

Sam let out a sigh. "Well, thankfully something is normal."

"Sam, he wasn't wearing a hat."

Sam's eyes bugged.

"But he was wearing a suit."

Sam's jaw dropped.

"And he called me Harry."

"He called you… Harry?" Sam echoed. "Why?"

"I don't know!" Dean hissed. "I woke up on a sofa, with Bobby yellin' at me, and he called me Harry! And said something about me having a day off…"

Sam headed for the door, and made his way to the office where Dean had woken up, where he looked around with a wrinkled nose.

"Oh, this is…" he waved a hand at the pizza boxes. "Dean, it smells in here!"

"It does, don't it?" Dean noted, Inhaling deeply. "I didn't notice it before. Ah, pizza, whetstone oil, cordite and leather." He took another deep breath. "You know, if I could bottle this, I could sell it."

"Yeah, to countries wanting to deploy chemical weapons, perhaps," griped Sam, heading for the wall. "Look, you've got these too. Citations. From the same… organisation."

"What, that Federal Office of, uh, Occult Control?" asked Dean.

"Federal Office of Occult Control, Elimination and Redaction," read Sam. "F.O.O.C.E.R. Seriously?"

There was a knock on the door, and both brothers spun around. A grinning face peered in at them.

"Garth!" yelped Sam in surprise.

"Hey Sam!" Garth chirped, "Might've guessed you'd be here too. Hey, Harry, check these out." He threw a small box to Dean, who caught it reflexively, and opened it.

The box contained silver rounds.

"Oh, uh, thanks, Garth," Dean managed a smile through his shock.

"Bobby says you can take 'em to the range for a test fire," Garth went on, "Let him know what you think. But he says that if you do it today, he'll kick your ass, and make you sit through the Work/Life Balance briefing again."

"Uh, okay, thanks for the heads up," Dean grinned as Garth, who disappeared again, and headed off down the corridor, whistling.

Dean considered the box of ammo in his hand. "Sam," he said carefully, "I'm gettin' the feelin' we aint in Kansas anymore…"

"He called you Harry," mused Sam, checking the small plate on the office door that read 'D. Winchester'. "But you're still Dean. Here, and on those citations."

Thoughtfully, Dean reached into his pocket and pulled out a small ID wallet. It identified him as Dean Winchester, a sworn member of the Federal Office of Occult Control, Elimination and Redaction. Sam checked his own pocket, and found a similar ID.

"So, uh, what the fuck is goin' on?" Dean wondered out loud.

Sam pulled out his wallet, and found two credit cards, a licence, a health insurance card and a library card in his own name. "Right now, I have no idea," he said grimly, pushing mess aside from the computer and starting it up. "Oh, crap, your keyboard is sticky…"

A small avalanche of paper spilled across the desk to get in his way, and he brushed at it in an irritated way, then stopped, and stared at a crumpled piece that caught his eye.

"What is that?" asked Dean, eyeing his baby brother's expression.

"It's… it's your Form W-2," Sam said in a bemused tone.

"My what?" demanded Dean.

"Your Form W-2," repeated Sam, "Your… your tax statement. It's what you send to the IRS to document how much tax has been taken out of your pay."

"But… I don't get paid!" blurted Dean, "That's crazy! You only get paid if you hold down a…"

"And here's a copy of your 1040," Sam picked up another piece of paper, "Your tax return. Holy shit, look at this…"

Dean grabbed the piece of paper, and read the section listing his occupation. "Nyaaaaaaaaaag," he went.

Sam turned and looked at his brother. "I got no idea where we are, bro," he said, "But from the looks of it,wherever we are, we're the Winchester brothers – paid, professional Hunters."

* * *

><p>Gasp! Whatever is little Frederika-Montgomery (aka Monty-Fred) up to? The Winchester as wage slaves? Feed the bunny reviews to make wiya more talkative!<p> 


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter Four**

Dean had had enough of his brain going _Nyaaaaaaaaaag._

"Wblsf?" he said instead. "Uh, professional, as in, do it for a living?"

"Yeah," Sam sounded just as dazed. "Professional, as in, doin' it for a living, and… gettin' paid for it."

"Paid?" Dean frowned in confusion. "So, one minute, nobody even knows that Hunters and fuglies exist, except for other Hunters – and the fuglies 'emselves, I guess – and we're so broke we're eatin' sandwiches for dinner and sleeping in the car, then the next," he rattled the paper, "We wake up in offices, with our frigging names on the doors, and we're part of some organisation calling itself the FOOCERs, and we're workin' for The Man?" He let out a snort of disgust. "Oh, this is so wrong!"

"You're telling me," Sam humphed, "Something's happened, and catapulted us out of our own reality and into…"

"Yeah, yeah, that too," Dean cut him off dismissively, "But I mean, seriously? Clockin' on? Fillin' in tax returns? You can't tell me that's right!" He thwacked at the paper scornfully. "We're Hunters, Sam – we save people, Hunt things, the family business. We're good at what we do, we don't need anybody tellin' us how to do it, and we've always managed, we don't need to join the nine-to-five rat race…"

"Weren't you complaining just yesterday that it'd be nice to get some sort of recognition, if not reimbursement?" Sam reminded him.

"Well, yeah," Dean agreed reluctantly, "In a general sense, yeah, but that doesn't mean I want to be a wage slave," he grimaced as he turned the paper over, "Riskin' my neck for chicken feed and a retirement plan that'll cover the cost of ten years in bottom-of-the-market old people's home where the hired help don't speak English and the food is so bad that even the roaches bitch about it… Jesus, looke at this!" He thwacked the paper again. "I'm not even a person to these FOOCERs, I'm just a number!"

Puzzled, Sam craned his neck to look at the paper, then his face became suddenly calm. "Er, that isn't actually any sort of designation number, Dean," he said faintly.

"Well what the fuck is it, then?" snapped Dean, "Because it looks like a number to me. Fuck, why don't they just tattoo it on the back of my neck to save time…"

Sam swallowed. "That was your salary for last financial year."

"…So when I turn up in the morning to make my way to my treadmill, they can just scan me, and…" Dean's ears caught up with his outrage, and his mouth dropped open as he looked at the paper again. "Huh?"

"There, bro," Sam indicated the figure at the bottom of the page, "It says how much you earned last financial year."

Dean blinked, then looked at the paper again. "Nyaaaaaaaaaag," he went.

"After tax," Sam added.

Dean's eyes glazed momentarily. "I'm… sovent?…" he said faintly. "I'm… I'm not just solvent, I'm… I'm…"

"Swimmin' in solvent," confirmed Sam. "Come on," he stood up and headed for the door.

"Where are you goin'?" demanded Dean.

"Back to my office," Sam replied, heading for the next room, "We gotta do some research."

"We can do research here," Dean said. "In my office," he added.

"Dean, no matter what reality we're in, the invariant constants of the known universe dictate that certain things will always be the same," Sam informed him. "The speed of light. The mass of the electron. The fact that any computer you use will be so badly disorganised that it will be impossible to find anything. The likelihood that it will be so clogged up with porn, pirated movies and stupid downloads that it'll be as slow as a wet week..."

"Yeah, yeah," grumbled Dean, following his brother.

As they left, a middle-aged lady pushing a janitor's cart rounded the corner. "Morning, Mr Winchester, Mr Winchester!" she called happily.

"Oh, er, mornin'," stuttered Dean, peering at the ID badge pinned to her pocket. "Delia."

She put her head into his office, and gave him a long-suffering sigh. "You did get the memo about the carpet cleaning, didn't you?" she said. "Please have everything off the floor by next Thursday. Don't worry," she gave him a smile, "I won't go near the pizza boxes."

"Oh, uh, good, yeah, that's, that's good," Dean forced himself to smile.

"You lot and your competitions," she chuckled. "Incidentally, you're three boxes clear of Tara, and four more than Doug!"

"Yeah?" Dean's eyebrows went up. "Well, of course," he let an attenuated version of The Killer Smile slide onto his face, "I'm just so awesome, I would always win any Leaning Tower of Pizza contest."

With a chuckle, Delia the cleaning lady headed into Dean's office; Sam saw her pick up a large pump pack of deodoriser, and thought that it wouldn't be nearly enough.

Sam started up the PC. A FOOCER login screen (with a number of paragraphs warning against inappropriate use of government resources) came up, and after a moment's consideration, he logged in.

"Okay, we're in," he muttered, scanning the desktop then clicking on an email icon, "So, if I can read some mail, maybe we can get an idea of…"

There was another knock at the door, and a breathless head appeared around the jamb. Dean's jaw dropped.

"Ch-Charlie?" he yelped.

"Oh, God, you're both here!" she almost wailed, "Come on," she strode into the room and grabbed Sam's arm, "You gotta get out!"

"Out?" echoed Sam as she took him under tow, a bemused battlecruiser being pushed into the shipping lane by a determined tugboat, with Dean following.

"Go home," she clarified. "The bean-counters are here," she went on, hurrying them along the corridor and into another, "And officially, you're not. They've been on his case about unofficial and unapproved overtime. Bobby's exact words were 'If that idjit is still on the premises, get him outta here before we have another Spreadsheet Incident'." They turned a corner. "Oh, and Harry, I know you've been downloading porn again. I can let a bit slide, because you're Dean Winchester, but if you try to sidestep my firewalls again and let in another damned Trojan, I'll have to report it. 'Busty Asian Beauties' does not count as reasonable personal administration."

"Oh ,er, sorry," Dean apologised as Charlie ushered them along.

"Also, keep it off the wifi," she continued, "I had enough trouble convincing Bobby we needed the 'wiffy' thing extra to the network. Don't screw it up for the rest of us." She gave him a sunny smile. "Don't piss off Queen SysOp, Harry, I can make your life a living hell."

"Uh, yeah, understood," he replied as she led them out to a large double door and into what looked like a parking garage, then flapped at them like she was herding chickens.

"Go on!" she urged them, "Go pretend to be normal people for a while!"

"But we aint normal," Dean pointed out.

"I said pretend!" she clarified, heading back into the building.

"So, er," Sam looked around, "The Winchesters have left the building."

Dean turned around slowly on the spot, like a compass needle, until, with a smile, he was pointing due Impala. "There she is," he drawled fondly, "Another one of the universe's constants."

They climbed in, and Dean started the car, then froze. "What?" Sam looked at his brother.

"Listen to that," Dean breathed, "Listen to that sound…"

Sam dutifully listened. "I hear, uh, I hear the engine running," he said, bemused.

"This engine aint just runnin', Sam," Dean smiled beautifully, "She's purring. She's, she's, it sounds like…"

He popped the hood and got out, lifting it up. Sam heard him make a noise of the type that was usually associated with enjoying Special Me Time.

"Jesus Dean, what the…" he got out of the car.

Dean was staring at the engine, a look of worshipful wonder on his face. "She's… oh my God," his voice was low and reverent, "Look at this."

"It's an engine," Sam observed with an eye-roll. "It's what makes a car go."

"This aint just an engine," Dean corrected him, "This is new. Genuine parts, a full rebuild." He put a hand to the chassis reverently with a shuddering sigh. "This is amazing."

"You come in your pants and I will end you," Sam muttered.

Dean seemed happy just to stand there, communing with The Machine God, until Sam nudged him. "Hey, we're persona non grata," he reminded his brother. "We should go before Bobby sends, I don't know, security or something, he seems pretty keen to have us gone. Or at least before we sustain carbon monoxide poisoning."

Dean slid back behind the wheel and put a hand on the dash. "Oh, Baby, somebody's been lookin' after you." He sighed happily. "So, where are we headed?"

"Home, apparently," Sam shrugged, reaching for his wallet, "Get your licence out."

A quick comparison established that they both lived at the same address. "Another universal constant," Sam noted, tapping at his phone, "Come on, then, let's go check out Casa Winchester."

* * *

><p>So, what will Casa Winchester look like? Does Dean get his fireman's pole down to the garage? Does Sam have his humidity-controlled vegetable storage pantry? What necessary features would their home require in an AU where they are swimming in solvent? Send Monty-Fred your thoughts, because Reviews are the Unexpected Engine Rebuilds Under The Hood Of Life!<p> 


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter Five**

"Where's Jimi?" said Dean suddenly as they drove through what proved to be the outskirts of Sioux Falls.

"This is a different reality, Dean," Sam reminded him, "You might never have summoned Jimi Senior, in which case, Rumsfeld would never have had his puppies. There might not even have been any Rumsfelds; if Bobby is the head of our, uh, office, I guess, he might not still have the yard, and therefore might not have needed a guard dog anymore."

"I still got dog hair," Dean pointed out the evidence on his jeans, "And his blanket's in the back seat."

"Well, maybe he doesn't Hunt with us," shrugged Sam, "Maybe he's at, er, home."

"That's just weird," Dean muttered, "Goin' out Hunting, and leaving Jimi behind."

They drove on, Sam navigating them to the opposite side of town from where Singer Salvage would have been located, into a neighbourhood that was decidedly respectable.

"Are you sure we're goin' in the right direction?" Dean asked dubiously, looking at the neatly kept gardens with houses set well back from the road, "If I saw guys like us drivin' around a neighbourhood like this, I'd notify the authorities."

"Right here and now, we are the authorities," Sam reminded him, "And according to this, we, er, live just up here, on the right."

It was a house much like the others in the street: the lawn was recently mowed, the fence had been painted not too long ago; only a couple of unobtrusive wardings that would only have been noticed by somebody who knew what to look for suggested that a person with a knowledge of the occult might live here.

Dean nosed Baby into the drive, and stopped uncertainly. "So, uh, what now?"

"Well," Sam waved a hand vaguely at the large garage, "I guess you, uh, park the car, and, and, yeah."

Dean leaned over to scrabble in the glove compartment, and found a remote. He hit the button, and the garage door swung open on well-greased hinges. As the door opened, so Dean's jaw dropped.

"Any time today, bro," Sam nudged him, prompting him to put the car in gear and nose it carefully into what was obviously a parking space for a large car.

Dean slid out of his car, looking around him.

The garage was crowded, but tidy. It was a garage with plenty of shelving, and tools stowed by somebody who obviously knew about taking care of them. There was a beer fridge. There was an ancient Ducati calendar, with girl in red bikini matching the red machine, on the wall. There was a battered stereo. This was a garage where a man could have man time, to do manly things, like commune with the Gods Of Machinery, drink beer and listen to music while he worked on his car, or mess around with some project that might or might not ever get running but could be messed around with because that's what a man-project during man-time in a man-shed was_ for_, damn it, and the tarp draped carefully over a bulky shape in the rear corner hinted at some such undertaking; it was the garage of a man who understood that the purpose of such projects is the journey, not the final destination, grasshopper. It was the garage of a manly man who took his man-time _seriously_.

But it wasn't the well-appointed work space that had caught Dean's eye. It was…

"What the…" Sam's eyes bugged, "Jesus, Dean, tell me that isn't yours, I know it sure as hell wouldn't be mine, please tell me that somebody has just left it here while they've gone on vacation…"

It was black. It was shiny. It smelled of oil, gas and blacktop. It radiated a sense of contained power, thunder and speed made manifest in steel and fairings, and Sam half expected it to growl at him as it sang its siren song to his big brother.

Dean put a hand tentatively on one handlebar. "It's… it's… she's… oh, wow…"

"I'm goin' inside before you start humping it," grumped Sam, "Or your car slaps you…"

The muffled sound of barking suddenly came to them, getting closer, and Dean turned away from the motorcycle. Then with a bang, a shape shot out of what Sam saw was a pet flap in the interior door, and streaked across the garage straight to Dean. The dog looked up at him, entire back end wiggling in loving welcome, as Dean hunkered down to check the name tag on the animal's collar.

"Jimi?" he asked wonderingly.

"Well, looks like he's here too," grinned Sam as the beagle climbed up Dean's leg and attempted to kiss him with extreme prejudice, "So we still got a dog, bro."

"Yeah," Dean looked down into the soulful eyes, "You're, uh, shorter than I remember." The seemingly prehensile tongue was deployed again. "Yerg, you're still a lousy kisser." He straightened up as the dog trotted over to greet Sam with equal enthusiasm. "Well, I guess this is where we live." A quick search of his jacket pockets turned up a key, so he let them in. "So, let's check out Casa Winchester."

It was… a house. A big house. A big spacious house. With a number of dog toys scattered on the floor. Jimi the beagle went galumphing past, snatched up a toy, and, honking on it, brought it back to Dean. He bent down to take the proffered item.

"Well, whaddya know," he smiled, "Oinker Stoinker is a universal constant."

"Dean, come and look at this," Sam's voice drifted to him, so he followed it to what turned out to be the well-appointed kitchen. Sam was peering into a large refrigerator.

"There's food in here," he announced.

"Uh, well, yeah," Dean began in a doting voice, "We put the beer in there, to keep nice and cold, and we put the pie in there, to keep it safe from bugs, and we put the leftover pizza in there, to keep the fluffy stuff from growin' on it for longer. That's what we use a refrigerator for, Sammy, storin' food. Unless you're that weirdo we dealt with in Maine, who kept bits of his neighbours in there, or that woman in Louisiana, I don't even wanna think too hard about what she had in her fridge, I still think those eyeballs were lookin' at me…"

"No, I mean, real food," clarified Sam, opening the door to demonstrate. The appliance was packed with, as Sam claimed, real food. Meat, dairy, juice, actual fresh produce. There did not appear to be anything that had come from a fast food store.

Dean peered into the recesses of the fridge. "Where's the beer?" he asked.

Sam joined him in peering. "Uh, not in there," he confirmed. "Hey, here's a funny idea, maybe in this reality you're not a complete alcoholic, and…"

"Bullshit," snapped Dean, straightening up, "Hunters and booze. Another universal constant. Like Jimi and Oinker Stoinker, like hamburgers and fries, like Hetfield and Ulrich, some things just go together wherever you are." His eyes narrowed. "Somewhere in this kitchen, there is beer…"

He stood in the middle of the kitchen, nostrils flaring.

"What the…?" mused Sam, "What are you now, some sort of tracking dog?"

Ignoring his baby brother, Dean carefully turned slowly in a circle, looking for all the world like a spaniel scenting the air. Watching, Sam was pretty sure he saw his brother's nose wiggle.

Running his hands along the kitchen cupboards, Dean stopped at one that looked just the same as the others, and swung it open; it proved to be the door of a smaller refrigerator that was stocked with beer. He turned and gave his baby brother a beaming smile.

"Figures," grunted Sam, "Dean, the Bow-Legged American Beerhound."

"It's a talent, Sammy," Dean sighed happily, "You got it or you don't." Leaving the beer supply, he opened the other side of the refrigerator to investigate the freezer section. "Oh, hey, this is more like it – tater tots! Hash browns! Hey, look, wings! We got wings! I bet Jimi still loves wings. Hey, J-Man how about for lunch we have…" His voice trailed off as his eye landed on something. "Oh – my – God. What the hell is that?"

"What?" Sam followed his brother's line of sight to the kitchen bench.

"That!" Dean pointed at the offending item, "That right there!"

Sam looked at his brother. "It's a fruit bowl, Dean." When silence ensued, he added, "It's a bowl. With fruit in it."

"Yeah, yeah, I can see that," Dean snapped impatiently, "But what is it doin' in my kitchen?"

"Your kitchen, huh?" Sam eyed him dubiously, "Well, what do you think it's doin'? It's holdin' fruit!"

"What the hell for?" demanded Dean.

Sam shot his brother a full strength _Bitchface_ #8™ (You Are Now Officially Talking Complete Shit, Dean) "For eating, you jerk, what do you think?" He picked up a rosy apple and bit into it with a crunch. "It's my kitchen too! Oh, that's really good..."

"Apples are for puttin' in pie, Sam," Dean frowned, moving on to inspect a shiny coffee machine, "And look at this – when did MIT start turnin' out coffee makers? It looks like it could smash atoms or something." He peered into the cupboard above the machine. "Oh, crap, all this weirdo girly syrup stuff must be yours. Which suggests that you run the coffee machine. Which means that you are on coffee detail."

They inspected the rest of the ground floor, taking in the large living room with a huge flat screen TV and rows of DVDs. Dean Winchester of FOOCER clearly had similar tastes in entertainment to the Dean Winchester who'd landed in his reality. "Dude," Sam wrinkled his nose, "Could you at least have stashed the porn in a cupboard or something?"

"Hey, you'd complain like hell if I kept it on your laptop," Dean replied breezily, heading for another door.

It opened into a room that he had only ever dreamed about. There was a pool table. There was a well-used sofa, another wide screen TV, a surround sound system, and multiple gaming platforms. The walls were lined with shelves holding games, magazines and books. Pictures of cars adorned the walls.

"Holy crap," he breathed, before turning to yell for his brother, "Sam, we got a, a, we got a man-cave here! Seriously!" There was no reply. "Sam! Sam?" When there was still no response, he went looking.

He found his brother in another room, sitting at a desk amongst what could best be described as organised clutter. There were floor to ceiling shelves stacked with books of all shapes and sizes, a computer station complete with printer, scanner and half a dozen things Dean didn't recognise, and a desk with a well-appointed stationery caddy, and piles of notes on its surface. There was a comfortable chair by the window, and a dog bed, suggesting that Jimi sometimes liked to spend time with one of his humans in here.

"I have a study," Sam breathed, running his hands over the desk blotter, "I have a real study. Where I can read, and research, and, and, and…"

"Now who's about to come in his pants?" muttered Dean. "Seriously, if you don't stop fondlin' the furniture, bro, I'm gonna have you assessed for some sort of mental problem."

The rest of the house was similar. Upstairs, on either side of a huge bathroom with steam shower and spa bath, they had their own spacious bedrooms with ensuites.

"Fuck me, this towel is the size of an aircraft carrier's deck… Jesus, Sam, an entire shelf of hair care products?"

"I am not about to take personal grooming criticism from an alleged adult who's bathroom clearly hasn't been properly cleaned any time recently, and had a bed like that, Dean."

"My bed's really cool, Sam! Don't you diss my bed!"

"Seriously? How many adults have a racing car bed?"

"Well, your bed is boring."

I don't care – it's big enough for me to stretch out if I want to. Hey get off my bed! Don't bounce on my mattress!"

"Huh. Even your mattress is boring. My mattress is totally better than this."

"What?"

"_My_ mattress is memory foam, Sam. _My_ mattress remembers me!"

"Whatever," Sam rolled his eyes and sat down on the bed. "It'll be weird to sleep here – I mean, look at this, no little baby polyesters were harmed in the making of this linen, it's all cotton."

Dean sat down beside him. "Well, at least we'll be comfortable while we try to figure out what happened." There was a honking from floor level; he bent down to see Jimi, who had followed them in their exploration of the house, butting at his leg with Oinker Stoinker the blue squeaky pig toy. "At least we still got the J-man to keep us company."

"This may actually work in our favour," Sam suggested, "If we're professional Hunters, with the resources of FOOCER available to us, that might be a big help in workin' out what happened." He stood up. "I'm gonna see if I've got remote access to FOOCER."

"If the you in this reality is anything like you, you'll have a port in your skull somewhere so you can jack into the network directly," opined Dean. "Of course, you might never find it, under all that hair. Another universal constant, apparently." He flopped backwards onto Sam's bed, and began to bounce.

"Hey, I said, don't bounce on my mattress!" yapped Sam.

"I'm guessin' it doesn't get much action in this verse, either," Dean grinned, "I'm just exercisin' it for you."

"Jerk." Sam headed out of the room. "Come on, we can start with what we remember, and work backwards, see if we can identify some causal factor."

"Go make coffee first," instructed Dean. "And don't you dare send us back to our own reality before I have a chance to test drive that steam shower!"

Muttering dire imprecations under his breath, Sam headed downstairs, leaving Dean to get it out of his system; it was going to take both of them running their Upstairs Brains to figure out what had happened.

Holding that thought, he decided to keep his mouth shut about the other door he'd peeked into – as soon as Dean discovered that they had a sauna, he'd never hear the end of it.

* * *

><p>My word, Monty-Fred is quite the little Martha Stewart, isn't wiya? Send that plot bunny nice juicy reviews, because Reviews Are The Unexpected Sauna In The House Of Life!*<p>

*If you are one of the depraved beldames who will insist that said sauna be stocked with Winchesters, just remember, the towels in this house are the size of aircraft carrier decks, and they know how to use them.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter Six**

After Dean had hassled him to make coffee, then hassled him some more because he knew how to work the machine to make girly-man sissy drinks ("I had a job when I was at Stanford, Dean, running a coffee machine isn't technically that difficult." "Aha! I KNEW it! College turned you into an emo. I blame myself. Don't you dare put that crap in mine, bitch."), Sam headed into the study. Jimi followed him and plonked himself down in the dog bed by the chair.

"So, you like to spend time in here as well, hey?" Sam smiled at the dog, who humphed contentedly.

"So, what's in here?" asked Dean.

"I'm betting that I have remote access," Sam replied, "All I gotta do is find my way around the computer in this reality."

"Shouldn't be too difficult," Dean shrugged dismissively, "It'll be as OCD as yours is. And the password will be the same. PLAIDFAIRY."

"That's not my password!" snapped Sam, giving his brother a Bitchface #8™ (You Are Now Officially Talking Complete Shit, Dean).

"EMOGIRL, then," Dean said dismissively.

"It's not that!"

"SEXISSCARY?"

"Dean…"

"LETTUCELOVER?"

"Dean…"

"DEANISAWESOME?"

"Absolutely not…"

"CRYTHRUSEX? ATROPHYDICK?"

"DEAN!"

"Really? You just use my name as your password?"

Sam shot Dean a hearty Bitchface #7™ (You Can Be Impossibly Unreasonable Dean, You Know That?). "Look, just because I try to keep my info in some sort of rational order doesn't make me OCD," griped Sam. "And you will never guess my password, so stop trying."

"You might at least be a bit impressed that I used a word like 'atrophy'," complained Dean.

"Yeah, yeah, well done Mr GED," Sam humphed. "Okay, we're in. Let's see what we've got…"

There was personal admin on the PC as well as a good deal of Hunting related material. Out of curiosity, Sam opened a couple of folders.

"What's that?" asked Dean, peering over his brother's shoulder.

"Apparently, it's my, uh, investment portfolio," Sam told him in a slightly bemused voice.

"Yeah?" scoffed Dean. "I've seen the amount of hair stuff you've got in your bathroom, Sam, I wouldn't think there'd be much left over for investing with after that. Unless you bought shares in the shampoo company."

"Well, apparently, there is," Sam opened another file, "In this reality, Hunters actually get paid a pretty good wage – for anybody, it makes sense to try to save at least some of what you earn, if you can, and if you can put it somewhere where it wil- HOLY SHIT!"

Together they stared at a dollar figure.

"Meeeeeep," went Sam.

"So, uh," Dean swallowed, "So, those are zeroes, aren't they?"

Sam nodded.

"Well," Dean went on uncertainly, "We've always lived the life, so to speak, so maybe it's not so surprisin' the Winchesters are a couple of workaholics. And of course, lettuce doesn't cost much. And you're a lightweight at the bar. And you never spend anything on women." His face lit up. "Oh, hey, how much have I got?"

"What?" asked Sam, finding his voice.

"Well, I'm clearly the more awesome of the Winchester brothers," Dean declared loftily, "So, how much have I got?"

"Well, you got a folder here," Sam acknowledged, clicking on another icon. Some more files popped up.

There was nothing resembling financial affairs beyond a list of bank statements, but there were several folders relating to vehicles, hardware, and some other items…

"What's that?"

"It's a bank statement, Dean. Your bank statement."

"Yeah? Where are my zeroes?"

"I think that's all the zeroes you have, bro. There's nothing else, except… _how much_ did you spend on, what, an engine?"

"Show me… oh, yeah, well, that's genuine parts, Sam. Worth every penny."

"Dean, that sum is more than the car would be worth!"

"To an ignorant asshole who can only count dollars, maybe – some things, you can't put a value on 'em with money, bro."

"And this – how many engines does one car need?"

"No, that's the drive shaft. Very important."

"What's this? Yoshimura? Is that a Japanese restaurant? Oh my God, what did you do, drink the bar dry?"

"It's an aftermarket exhaust system, Sam, didn't you see it on Honey?"

"Who?"

"Honey. Look." He took a key from his pocket; it had a name tag on it. "Her name is Honey. And that's a top-of-the-line two-into-one she's wearin'."

"You named a motorcycle Honey?"

"Well, this-reality-me did. I can't wait to take her out for a test ride."

"Dean, you cannot, I repeat, you cannot take to the road on that, that, oriental engine of impending death!"

"Yeah I can. She's mine!"

"And this. Dean, you hired a bouncy castle. Why would you hire a bouncy castle?"

"Well, look at the date, it must've been for my birthday."

"That would explain the bill from the liquor store." Sam gave his brother a look. "You don't have so many zeroes, Dean, because apparently you mostly spend it just as fast as you earn it."

"Makes more sense," Dean noted dismissively. "I mean, you can't take it with you. And Hunters usually don't live long enough to enjoy savings anyway – eat, drink, and bounce on the bouncy castle, for tomorrow we may die."

"Uh-huh," mused Sam, "Well, if that's the case, why is there a FOOCER retirement plan?" He tapped at the screen. "To which you make the minimum contribution."

"There is?" Dean peered at the screen. "Well, if it's compulsory, of course I'm gonna make the minimum payment, since I'll probably never get to enjoy it…"

"Captain Optimism rides again," grunted Sam, "Okay, this looks like FOOCER access. I'll poke around here. Try to get a handle on this organisation, and where we fit in, and see if I can get anything to help work out how we ended up here. So, what are we dealing with here - something that can throw people into a different reality? A Djinn?"

"Can't be," Dean stated promptly, "In my ideal reality, there wouldn't be tax returns. Or girly coffee syrup." He frowned in thought. "The winged dicks screwing with us again?"

"It doesn't feel like that," opined Sam, "If it was angels messing with us, somehow, I think it would be a whole lot more unpleasant. Less fresh fruit and high thread count linen, more blood and removal of internal organs. This is a spell or curse, I think."

"It would take a lot of mojo, though," Dean commented, "Who have we pissed off enough recently that they'd be willing to spend that much occult effort on a curse to get back at us?"

"Dean, there's a queue of people who'd do anything to get us out of their reality," Sam pointed out, "So attempting to ID a motive doesn't narrow the field down much." He perused the shelves, and pulled out some books. "You start with these – look for anything that might relate to a spell to throw somebody out of their own reality."

With a melodramatic sigh, which was echoed by Jimi the beagle, Dean pulled a chair up to the edge of the desk, and opened a book, while Sam navigated his way through the FOOCER login screen. "Okay, but while you're pokin' around with the FOOCERs, there's a more pressing question that we need to answer."

"Yeah?" Sam looked up. "What's that?"

"Find out why the hell people keep callin' me Harry!"

**...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... **

They worked for a couple of hours, but Sam found it a challenge not to get side-tracked by the extent of the FOOCER system.

"This is amazing," he told Dean, "There is so much stuff online – entire books out of Bobby's library have been digitised and annotated. Some of this stuff I've never seen before! This one, it's a German manuscript, Bobby wasn't sure if there was even a copy left in existence."

"If it exists and a Hunter needs to get a look at it, it makes sense that Bobby would be able to find it," Dean nodded. "Apparently, him bein' a Man of Knowledge is another universal constant." He craned his neck to look at the screen. "How'd he get to be our boss, anyways?"

Sam clicked through a few screens. "He was a Hunter," he relayed, "But took on a managerial role when age and injury started to catch up with him. He goes out on assignment occasionally now, but it looks like he mostly sits in the big chair, and oversees research."

Dean hummed thoughtfully. "You got a lot of management books in your office," he recalled, "Hey, you think you're bein' groomed for office? Like, he's Darth Knowledge, and you're his Sith apprentice, Darth Bitchface?"

"It's a possibility," Sam shrugged, "Any organisation worth its salt has succession planning as part of its business plan."

"Huh, well, don't think you'll ever be in a position to tell _me_ what to do," Dean sniffed disdainfully.

"I won't," Sam rolled his eyes, "Because we won't be here. We'll be back in our own reality."

"Well, yeah," agreed Dean. "Maybe I'd better leave a note for myself, you know, don't take any crap from Francis just because he's gotten his ass on Bobby's chair…"

"I don't think it works like that," Sam said in the tone of somebody who had long and bitter experience in trying to explain to a small child that simply turning the calendar pages over will not make Christmas come any faster. "Alternative realities, branching probabilities of reality, don't allow for…"

"What if I wrote it on the wall with a sharpie?"

"No, Dean."

"What if I wrote it in solder on the work bench?"

"No…"

"What if I sent myself an email?"

"Dean…"

"Should I get a tattoo?"

"That won't work…"

"I know, I'll send myself a strippergram!"

"I give up."

The postulation about contacting yourself in a different dimension was punctuated by a loud rumble from Dean's stomach.

"Okay, it's officially lunch o'clock," the older Winchester announced, "I will be in the kitchen, preparing myself a sustaining meal to get me through the shock of this reality shift, and fortify me for more research." He paused and looked at his brother. "I can make you a tofu sandwich or something, if you like."

"Gee, spare no effort," muttered Sam.

As it turned out, the fridge yielded enough fillings for Dean to make himself a sandwich that was almost too large to get his mouth around: the pieces of bread enclosing the chunks of dead animal were merely added as a sop to any pedant who would attempt to argue that a pile of filling by itself did not actually constitute a sandwich.

"You can be truly disgusting, you know," Sam noted reproachfully over his own chicken and salad roll, as Dean bit into his culinary construction.

"You wait until dinner," he hummed happily, "There's steak in there, Sammy, prime steak, and all the trimmings. As alternative realities go, it could've been worse."

"Yeah, I guess so," Sam agreed – the roll was a fresh sourdough, the chicken meat was tender, and it was altogether a better quality of lunch than he was used to.

"If I'm gonna be cursed, I'd rather be cursed on a full stomach," Dean decided, dropping a piece of meat for Jimi, who was sitting attentively by his chair. "With a decent roof over my head. And a spa bath. And a fridge full of beer. In fact," he leaned back, and plucked a beer from said fridge, "As curses go, this one aint so bad." He paused. "I think I'll go with the strippergram."

"Dean, I told you, you can't leave a message for alternative-reality self, it won't work…"

"Not to leave a message, Sam – just because I can."

"Oh, God, that is so wrong…"

"Yeah, you're right. I'll send you the strippergram."

"What?"

"It'll be good for you. You need to get laid, Sam."

"Oh, God…"

"I can ask that she turns the lights down low, so you don't get frightened."

"Dean…"

"And she can throw you a garter or something, to dry your tears."

"Dean…"

"I know, I know, I got it: I'll hire a stripper to do the Dance Of The Seven Kales!"

"I hate you."

* * *

><p>I don't think that the plot bunnies like the sudden burst of hot weather we've been having Down Here: little Jackie-Joy who is supposed to be dictating 'Old Dogs, Old Tricks' is probably off lounging by a pool somewhere, calling languidly for another daiquiri, while Monty-Fred does bombs off the diving board. At least Monty-Fred managed to get out of the water long enough to give us another chapter. Are the Winchesters getting too comfy in this reality? Something must upset their apple cart sooner or later. Meanwhile, send the bunny reviews, because they are the Daiquiri Brought To You As You Lounge By The Pool Of Life!*<p>

Any Denizens** under legal age or not partaking of the demon drink may have a nice non-alcoholic daiquiri.

**Yes, yes, all right, any Denizen who so wish it may have their daiquiris brought to them by the Winchester Of Their Choice. Depraved beldames that you are.


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter Seven**

After lunch, Dean informed his brother that he was going to spend some man-time in the garage.

"Alternative-me went to all the trouble of settin' it up, it would be an insult to him not to use it," Dean declared imperiously.

"Right," sighed Sam, "And while you're doing man-time in the man-shed, you'll be doing man-thinking about our little problem here, I suppose."

"Exactly!" Dean beamed at him. "I'll let it run in the background, let my awesome Hunter skills mull it over." He paused. "While I do man-time, you can do emo-time," he suggested with a magnanimous gesture. "Sit in the spa, and do your hair. There's bubble bath in there."

"Yeah, I saw that," Sam answered brightly, "And I also noticed that on the back of the bottle it has scrawled in sharpie STAY AWAY FROM MY STUFF BITCH."

"Well, obviously, I use it for therapeutic purposes," Dean recovered magnificently with a disdainful sneer. "Huntin' can be a physically demanding job. I don't wanna have to claim on that retirement plan any sooner than is absolutely necessary."

"Of course," Sam rolled his eyes, "Well, I'll keep at it with the research, see what I can turn up."

"You could take Jimi for a w-word," Dean suggested, smiling down at the beagle who was smiling right back up at him. "It would be an excuse to check out the area, see if there's anything out of the ordinary. Well, anything that would be out of the ordinary more than this is already out of the ordinary. Man walkin' his dog, nobody will look twice."

"That's not a bad idea," mused Sam, thinking that he wouldn't mind stretching his legs. "What do you think, Jimi? You wanna go for a walk?"

As soon as Sam said the w-word out loud, the dog woofed happily, and spun around on the spot.

"Well, that's done it, dude," Dean grinned, "You gotta take him now."

"Beagles are a breed that benefits from plenty of on-lead exercise," Sam agreed, as the dog dashed off. Moments later, he was back with a leash in his mouth, tail wagging furiously. "Aaaaand it looks like Jimi is right on board with that."

"Well, you two have fun," Dean said sunnily, "I'll be worshiping at the alter of The Machine God. Don't worry, I'll be in with plenty of time for dinner."

"I don't doubt it," Sam hunkered down to take the proffered leash and snap it onto Jimi's collar.

They went by a pair of running shoes – 'his' running shoes, Sam realised – at the front door, and Jimi stopped to sniff at them, then looked up expectantly at Sam.

"So, we go out for a run, do we?" he asked the dog. "This is more of a recon, but maybe tomorrow, if we're still here."

They headed out down the street, Sam casually checking the route on his phone as they went. Jimi clearly had a very good idea of where they should go: he was clearly trying to be a good boy and walk nicely on the lead, but like most beagles, the constant temptation of scents to sniff at everywhere got the better of him. He would suddenly break off from walking by Sam to dart at a tree, a stone, a tuft of grass, or nothing that Sam could see, and snuffle at it furiously, tail wagging.

"You're still a dog who could track anything anywhere, aren't ya?" chuckled Sam as Jimi found yet another irresistible smell, then paused to 'answer' what was presumably a pee-mail left earlier by another dog.

There didn't seem to be anything in the area that would set of a Hunter's spidey senses, unless it was just the, well, the niceness of the place. The houses and yards were well kept, the streets were wide and the verges trim. The odd car to be found in a drive was always a late model, in excellent condition. It was an area where nobody who wasn't on at least six figures would ever get a look-in.

_I might've ended up in a place like this,_ Sam thought to himself, _A respectable professional, with a career I liked, something I was good at, a family and a nice house – a home –and a picket fence and a study and a basket for the dog in there and no worries about where my next meal would be coming from…_

He realised that he'd essentially described what the Sam in this FOOCER reality actually had. Well, he'd have to reserve judgement on the 'respectable' bit, he didn't think Dean in any reality would ever really to 'respectable'. 'Housebroken' was probably as good as it got.

_And maybe a car that's not pushing fifty, has an iPod jack and and gets more than one-point-three miles to the gallon._

Now he thought about it, that was a bit weird. FOOCER-Sam was a guy who earned plenty of money – he could've chosen a make, walked into any dealer, ordered a late model with as many custom features as he wanted, and paid for it outright. But he hadn't done so. Why not?

_Maybe because he's got a career, and his family, his brother, and a home, and his study, and he's perfectly contented with what he's got…_

He was pulled from his thoughts by a noise. A rumbling, thumping noise, a sound that somehow brought the word 'prowling' to mind.

He looked up into the sky to see if a plane was in the process of crashing somewhere.

The noise became louder, varying in pitch as it did so, but never losing the growling note that suggested a predator was on the loose. Something was coming closer.

He pulled Jimi away from the edge of the road as it rounded the corner, pausing and rumbling as if scenting the air for prey.

It was big. It was black. It was sleek. It roared as they came into its line of sight…

Dean shot past on one wheel, grinning like a loon, and flipped his brother off.

**...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... **

Dean was completely unrepentant as he put a steak dinner down in front of his brother, who had worn a persistent Bitchface #14™ (There Are Times When Your Behaviour Is So Reckless I Wonder If You Took Lessons As A Small Child) since the close encounter of the motorcycling kind.

"You could've been killed, pulling a stunt like that," Sam muttered. "You could've been killed just riding it."

"She, Sam," Dean corrected him without rancour, "Honey is a she. Just like Baby."

"As if being a Hunter, paid or otherwise, isn't dangerous enough," Sam went on, "You gotta go and ride that thing!"

"Yeah," Dean sighed happily and sat down, "And if you don't like Honey, you're just gonna love what's under the tarp."

"Oh, God," groaned Sam, "Do I want to know?"

"Nope!" Dean positively beamed.

"But you're gonna tell me anyway, aren't you?" Sam knew when he was beaten.

"Yep!" Dean was unstoppably cheerful. "That there is my man-project!"

Sam looked at him dubiously. "Your man-project?" he echoed.

"Well, duh," shrugged Dean, shovelling a large chunk of steak into his mouth. "It's what every man needs in his man-shed, for doin' man-stuff during man-time." A beautiful smile crossed his face. "It's… a Ninja!"

Sam gave his brother a level glare. "Are you tellin' me that, under that tarp in the garage, there is a Japanese man wearing a black _gi_, swords and a pissed off expression? Gee, think if the fun you can have with your new bud on Sneak Like A Ninja Day…"

"No, bitch," Dean rolled his eyes in a very Samesque fashion indeed, "A Kawasaki Ninja. Before they were even Ninjas. It's an honest-to-Cas 1984 GPz900R."

"Wow!" Sam tweeted with fake enthusiasm, "A vehicle that is only three decades old!"

"This beast is the granddaddy of every Big Four sports bike rollin' around today," Dean declared in a tone that held awe. "And I've been restoring it!"

"You?" Sam cocked an eyebrow at his brother.

"You know," Dean waved a fork, loaded with potato, in a dismissive way. "Me. As in, here-me. Which is clearly me. Because here-me, FOOCER me, is clearly just as awesome as me me. He has good taste in cars, good taste in furniture, good taste in booze, and," he grinned, "If the contents of my dresser drawer are to be believed, the Living Sex God is well known to this reality…"

"Could we not talk about that over dinner?" Sam almost wailed. "I might've known that it'd be another damned constant, you and your libido that's more extroverted than Kim Kardashian's ass."

"And you're still a prude, who's frightened of sex," Dean sighed sadly. "I don't know where I went wrong with you. I tried so hard, I taught you everything I know, well, not _everything_, obviously, because I can't teach you to be as awesomely naturally hot as the Living Sex God, that's just innate and I don't know how to teach it because even I don't know how I do it, I'm just that good…"

"If only science could somehow harness your sex drive, and channel its power into something useful," mused Sam. "As a non-fossil fuel source, it would blow solar and cold fusion into the weeds."

"It is channelled into something useful!" protested Dean. "It's channelled into pleasing the women of America! It's a noble calling. A duty, a vocation."

"Well, don't get too vocational tonight," Sam humphed, "We got a meeting tomorrow morning."

Dean stared at him like a child being told that the next day's breakfast would consist of Brussels sprouts in liver sauce. "A meeting?"

"We're federal employees," Sam reminded him. "Sooner or later, we were gonna have to go to a meeting. Don't worry, it's a mission debrief for our group, from what I can work out it won't take long, then we'll be preparing for our next job. But you'd better be able to turn up sober tomorrow morning; I got the feeling that Bobby's not the sort of boss who'll put up with you showin' up at the office still tanked from the previous night."

"Well, I guess I can have a quiet night in," Dean shrugged, shovelling more food into his mouth, and make a noise of enjoyment that was just indecent enough to draw a Bitchface #2™ (Dean Is A Simple Animal Governed By The Three Fs: Feeding, Fighting, and… The Other One) from his brother. "I'll have a quiet night in the man-cave, just hangin' with my Playstation." He leaned back and stretched. "I might even have a bath while you do the washing up."

"Right," muttered Sam.

"Hey, I cooked, it's only fair that you clean up," Dean stated firmly, "Which will only involve stacking stuff in the dishwasher anyway. Don't worry, I'm bettin' this place has an on-demand hot water service. So you can have a bath too, after me. I'll even clean the jets for you, when I'm done."

"Wow, I feel special," Sam rolled his eyes.

"Just don't you dare touch my bubble bath, bitch."

* * *

><p>I hope you're all making preparation to observe Sneak Like A Ninja Day, on December 5th. I intend to spend it sliding around door frames, in my ninja mask, until my boss demands to know what the hell I'm doing. (Actually, I'd better be careful, he's done aikido and shinkendo and might tie me in knots for impertinence. And for being a lousy ninja, because he saw me to initiate knot-tying.)<p>

Feed the bunny reviews, and let's hope that none of them want to sneak around like ninjas. Let us declare Friday to be a day when all plot bunnies everywhere make a special effort to pop out of their hidey-holes, hutches and bars to dictate some more fanfic! This day shall be designated… Plot Bunnies Parade Around Like Kim Kardashian's Arse Day!


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter Eight**

Dean singing in the bath was just as obnoxious as Dean singing in the car. Or, in fact, Dean singing anywhere, Sam decided.

"Hey, Sam," he called when he'd finished, "Come and get a look at this."

"What is it?" Sam called back, heading up the stairs. His brother stood wearing a towel. "Jesus, Dean, if this is some exhibitionist tendency you've inherited from your alternative reality self, I don't wanna… oh, fuck."

"You're tellin' me," commented Dean, looking down at himself.

Across the left side of his chest there were scars, four parallel gashes that had clearly gone very deep and been potentially life-threatening at the time.

"Wow," breathed Sam, stretching out his own hand. "Whatever did _that_ was…"

"Friggin' huge, and friggin' nasty," finished Dean.

"This could've killed you," Sam noted.

"But it didn't," Dean told him, a touch smugly, "I'm obviously just as awesome in this reality as in our own." He contemplated his scars. "What would do this? Besides the ghost of a pissed off gardener still wielding a garden fork?"

"Any number of things," shrugged Sam, "We can maybe have a look through your files at FOOCER tomorrow, see what we can find. You clearly needed medical treatment for it." He glanced into the main bathroom behind his brother. "Hey, the water is supposed to stay in the tub!"

"I can't help it if the sides aint high enough," sniffed Dean.

"If the… Dean, the idea is you don't fill it so full!"

"Just put down some more towels, if you want to use it," Dean told him, "There's heaps in the cupboard."

"What I want is for you to live like a more civilised person," griped Sam, "While we apparently have a more civilised house to live in." He eyed the large tub, which was gurgling away in a somewhat startling fashion. "Is it supposed to do that?"

"I told you I'd clean the jets afterwards," Dean reminded him, "It'll do that for a minute or so, then drain itself. Then you can use it."

"How do you know about maintenance of a spa bath?" asked Sam curiously.

Dean's eyebrows waggled in their most salacious style. "I aint no stranger to spas, Sammy," he grinned, "O' course, on most previous occasions, I've had the company of a frisky woman, and let me tell you, a lot of those women could hold their breath for longer than you'd think was possible…"

"Aaaaargh!" yelped Sam, giving his brother a Bitchface #6™ (I SO Do NOT Want To Hear The Gory Details Of One Of Your Sexual Conquests, Jerk), "Does everything always have to come back to sex with you?"

"Yep," declared Dean happily, "I am the Living Sex God. Don't hate me because I'm talented."

"I don't," Sam returned trenchantly, "I hate you because you are a sex-obsessed jerk with a one-track mind who derives enjoyment from telling me his Chicks I Have Banged stories when I've made it clear that I'm not interested."

"Also, the instructions are under the vanity," Dean told him, heading for his own bedroom. "With my bubble bath. And I know how much is in the bottle, bitch."

**...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... **

"There's somethin' wrong with goin' for a run before breakfast," Dean opined the next morning as Sam slid into shotgun, "Unless there's something seriously nasty chasin' you."

"You did plenty of running on an empty stomach when we were kids," Sam reminded him.

"That was different," Dean pronounced judiciously. "When you're a kid, you gotta do what your parents tell you. Now, I'm an adult, makin' my own way in the world, I can do what I want under my own roof…"

"Your own roof?" Sam couldn't suppress a chuckle.

"Our own roof," Dean qualified, "Which means, I can opt not to run before breakfast, and you can opt to go for a run before breakfast, because I am an independent self-sufficient adult, and you're not normal."

"You should come with us next time," Sam grinned, then turned to address the dog, who was making himself a comfortable nest on the back seat. "We could make it a pack run. Right, Jimi?" He turned to his brother. "What's he doing comin' to work with us anyway?"

"He seemed pretty insistent on it," Dean shrugged. And he had been: when the Winchesters had prepared to leave, Jimi had purposefully trotted out with them, and paused by the door, clearly waiting to be let into the car. "This is obviously his routine. If he wants to come with us, then we pay attention."

"He's not exactly the Jimi we're used to," Sam pointed out in as tactful a tone as he could manage. "He doesn't have any Hellhound ancestry."

"I know," Dean replied equably, "But he's still our Jimi. And we know better than to ignore him. Who knows? He could still have a nose for evil shit."

"He certainly has a nose for yoghurt," Sam sighed – Jimi the beagle had managed to help himself to Sam's breakfast before they realised what he was doing.

"I bet he still loves wings," Dean grinned. At the mention of the other w-word, Jimi raised his head and yapped happily, thumping his tail on the seat. "See? He's our Jimi."

"He loves food," Sam corrected. "Or anything he things might be food. It's a beagle thing." He turned to look at the dog. "But I bet he'll never try to eat conditioner again."

"Just think, his tongue will be a silky and bouncy as your hair," Dean said brightly. "And it can only improve his breath. So, what's this meeting we got this morning?" Dean asked, manoeuvring Baby carefully out of the drive.

"Like I said, it looks pretty informal," Sam told him, "It's a get-together with other Hunters – looks like your pizza-pals Tara and Doug will be there – to talk about our last Hunts, pick up our next assignments."

"What was our last Hunt?" Dean queried a bit worriedly.

Sam started up the laptop to which, Dean had decided, he brother was congenitally conjoined in any possible reality. "Well, accordin' to the files," his little brother filled him in, "We just finished dealing with an undocumented witch who was making trouble dabbling with things she just didn't have the capacity to control…" he grinned. "Guess what? In this reality, we just shut down Leslie."

"Good," grunted Dean, "Because I got a feeling that whatever reality she's in, she'd be totally incompetent. Worse than incompetent. She'd be anti-competent. It's like the Midas touch in reverse; everything she touches turns to shit." He frowned. "I'm not sure I like the idea of meetings, Sam. Gettin' paid for what I do, sure, I'm totally on board with that, but meetings?"

"There's a reminder here that it's Doug's turn to get the doughnuts," Sam informed him.

Both Dean and Jimi pricked their ears up at the mention of the d-word. "Doughnuts?"

"It said doughnuts," Sam confirmed. "Also an admonition for people to clean up the coffee machine after use."

"Well, after that, I'll take those silver rounds to the range," Dean stated, "It was practically an order, so I'd better do it."

"Now who's drinking the KoolAid?" observed Sam.

"My considered opinion is obviously valued in this matter," Dean said importantly. "But I can tell just from lookin', they aint high quality. Nothin' like what Ronnie could do."

"We have been spoiled for silver ammo, I guess," Sam conceded.

"Maybe I should suggest to Bobby that we get her to cast our rounds," Dean suggested.

"We don't even know if she's, well, her, in this reality," Sam reminded him, scanning the screen. "I can't find mention of her in FOOCER. But if Hunters are acknowledged, and actually employed, there might be a similar scheme in Australia. She might never have left for the US."

Dean laughed. "Hey, she might never have been bitten. Wouldn't that be something. I bet she's still the World's Crankiest Person, though."

"If she's somewhere in this reality, we should try to track her down, see if we can get her to cast for FOOCER," Sam suggested, "Maybe even arrange some sort of secondment, an attachment, so somebody from FOOCER could go and understudy, learn how she does it." He glanced sideways at his brother. "You know, she says that my metalwork just isn't up to it, but that you could probably develop a feel for it…"

"No," Dean stated firmly. "Absolutely not. I am NOT gettin' on a plane, to spend fifty-six hours in a pressurised tin can hurtling through the air at ridiculous speed…"

"It's a twenty-six hour trip," Sam interrupted, and you get at least one stop-over on the way."

"… Where I'd end up jammed in between a fat guy who's so overweight he spills over into my seat and a hyperactive kid who wants to make tiger noises and kick the seat all the way…"

"I bet FOOCER would send you at least business class."

"Only to get to the other end of the trip, and then have to do what _she_ tells me!" humphed Dean.

"She wouldn't be telling you what to do," Sam rolled his eyes, "She'd be teaching you!"

"It aint happenin'," Dean grumped, "Anyway, we'll be headin' back to our own reality, and here-Dean would say fuck your succession planning, and the camel it rode in on."

They headed back into the FOOCER building, accompanied by Jimi, and made for their offices. Jimi made himself comfy on the sofa in Dean's office.

"So, what now?" asked Dean, as Sam picked up a folder. Before his brother could reply, a voice behind them called, "Hey, Harry!"

The Winchesters turned to see a stack of doughnut boxes approaching.

"Uh, Doug?" said Sam.

"Just call me the doughnut fairy," sighed the face that appeared above the boxes. "Here, gimme a hand, will ya?"

Dean took half the boxes, and the rustle of cellophane drew Jimi's attention. "Oh, no you don't, mister," Doug chortled, "The last thing we want is a replay of Jimi And Rumsfeld Get Into The Doughnuts." He shooed good-naturedly at the dog. "Not quite as bad as The Spreadsheet Incident, but close. And definitely a lot more powdered sugar involved. Come on, you know how grumpy the old man gets if we're late, he'll be idjiting left right and centre."

Followed closely by Jimi, who eyed the doughnut boxes intently, the Winchesters followed the other Hunter.

* * *

><p>Can't hang around have found catalogue for electronics gadgetry company must shop ZOMG stuff must buy self Chrissy presents 3D printing pen OMGWTFBBQ pls leave reviews kthxbai.<p> 


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter Nine**

They arrived in a meeting room where a number of other people – other Hunters – were clustered around a coffee machine. One of the women looked up, and smiled.

"We're saved, the Grinder God is here!" she trilled melodramatically.

"Coffee," moaned another woman, "Coffee, don't expect me to say anything in human language until I've had coffee…" She waved her mug meaningfully at Sam.

"You better come and help us," intoned a man ominously, "Otherwise we'll all be wandering around like zombies, and then the old man will idjit at us with extreme prejudice."

"He does that anyway," said a younger guy, peering hopefully at Doug's cargo.

"If we look zombieish enough, he might start shoving stakes into us, if he's annoyed enough," added Doug, putting down his load of doughnuts. The Hunters fell upon them with inarticulate cries of joy.

"Look, it's really not that hard to run this thing," Sam began.

"You say that every time, dude," Doug pointed out, "But you got the touch."

"It's like it only has solenoids for you," complained the first woman, "Or it's possessed, or something."

"It isn't possessed," the other woman told her, "I tried an exorcism. It could be a poltergeist."

"What, like a coffeegeist or something?" Dean asked. "That's nuts."

"You tell 'em, Harry," Doug nodded judiciously. "Not in this building, Tara. It's warded tighter than a Kardashian's thong. You're on drugs. And if you aren't, you should be."

The group continued to eat doughnuts and bicker good-naturedly until Bobby, hatless and resplendent in suit, appeared at the door. Another beagle, a female, accompanied him. She trotted across the room to exchange nose-sniffs of greeting with Jimi, then took him by the scruff of the neck, pulled his head down between her front paws, and tenderly began to wash his ears.

"Looks like Rumsfeld's here after all," Sam whispered to Dean.

"And Jimi's still her little boy," Dean couldn't help but grin.

"All right, idjits," Bobby raised his voice, "If it's all the same to you, I'd like to get this over with as quickly as possible and get back to doin' somethin' useful, so siddown and shaddap."

The Hunters arranged themselves and the doughnuts around the table, with Bobby at the head of the meeting. "So," he started, "Tara, Karen, why don't you kick off?"

As meetings went, it wasn't so bad, Dean thought. Tara and Karen, who apparently worked as a team, described their last Hunt against what had turned out to be a shapeshifter. The people in the meeting carried out a job post-mortem, asking questions, making suggestions, and discussing their approach, while Bobby watched, saying very little, and listened intently.

"Good job, ladies," he gruffed eventually, "Now, movin' right along, Doug, what do you think you're up against?"

They made their way through the cases that people had finished or were working, including Dean and Sam's case. There was a certain amount of laughter around the table as the Winchesters listed Leslie's attempts to help people.

"Hey, dispelling the guy with the granite tablets was not easy," complained Sam.

"Yeah," Dean backed his brother up, "He was really big on the Thou Shalt Nots. 'Thou Shalt Not Chew With Thy Mouth Open, Thou Shalt Not Feed The Dog Under The Table, Thou Shalt Not Prank Thy Workmates, he wouldn't shut up, right until the very end."

"I've had a look at the grimoire you confiscated," Bobby commented. "It's some seriously powerful mojo. Defusin' it could be tricky, but me and Q are on it. And I would like you all to take note," he drew his eyebrows together and his gaze raked the assembled Hunters, "Of exactly how efficiently Dean and Sam completed this job. You've seen the report – their expenses list puts you all to shame, if they can pull off a job like this on a shoestring, you lot can rein in your claims too…" A number of groans went around the table. "I mean it," he continued sternly, "I had the bean-counters ridin' my ass yesterday…"

"No further Spreadsheet Incidents, one hopes," beamed Tara.

"Couldn't be," Doug commented, "Because Harry wasn't even here." Sniggers ran around the table.

"So, take a lesson, people," Bobby went on. "This office aint made of money. Due to the nature of our work, we get cut some slack, but we gotta follow the rules as much as anybody else; we gotta make the books balance, like every other government funded agency." He turned to the Winchesters. "So, you wanna check out a job, or have you got something in mind?"

"We're… looking into something," Sam replied.

"Good," Bobby grunted. "Let me know as soon as you think you have a case." He looked at his watch. "Now, I got somewhere to be," he announced, "And you asshats have work to do, so I suggest you get to it. But before we go," his eyes narrowed, "It has been brought to my attention that there may be another pizza box contest in progress…"

Around the table, Sam saw a number of faces – including his brother's – remain carefully blank.

"And I'm sure we all remember what happened last time, when we had to call in pest controllers to deal with the mice."

"I thought they were kind of cute," Karen sighed, "With their song and dance routines, and their tiny little hats and bow ties…"

"Doin' anything that might attract rodents into a building with as much occult mojo floatin' around as this one is not a good idea," Bobby said firmly, "So you just declare a winner right now, and get rid of the evidence." He stood up and headed for the door, Rumsfeld the beagle making her way to his side. "So, run along, children."

"Nuts," griped the young guy called Dave, "I really thought I was in with a chance, this time."

"Yeah, right," Doug rolled his eyes, "We must, once again, acknowledge the presence of a master in our midst."

"All hail Harry the pizza god," intoned Tara in a tone of awe, picking up her notebook. "So, how the hell do we get rid of all the damned things?"

"In the dumpsters," said Karen firmly, "You take 'em out, and put 'em in the dumpsters. You do NOT go pester Q to come up with some spell to, I dunno, translocate them to somewhere else."

"But there's dozens of the damned things!" Tara complained. "Just zapping them to the bottom of the ocean or something would be much easier."

"Not for the fish who live where they suddenly appeared," Karen sniffed in disapproval.

As the Hunters left, bemoaning the fact that they would have to carry their accumulated pizza boxes to the garbage, Dean turned to Sam. "Come on, you can give me a hand."

"No way," Sam crossed his arms, "In this reality, you accumulated a Leaning Tower of Pizza all by yourself, you can dispose of the evidence all by yourself."

"Screw that," Dean waved a hand dismissively, "I'm due at the range, to test out those silver rounds. Find me a map of this place, so I can go there and look like I know what I'm doin'."

**...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... **

They headed for the shooting range, discussing their progress – or lack thereof – with figuring out how they'd ended up in an alternative reality.

"There seem to be quite a lot of parallels between us, and the FOOCER Winchesters," Sam noted.

"That's true," Dean sending a target to the end of the range, "I'm still totally awesome, and you're a whining emo dolphin apologist type." He put on the glasses and earmuffs Sam proffered, then put several closely grouped rounds into the centre of the target. "Mind you," he mused, loading the silver rounds, "If we had to get stuck in an alternative reality, we could do worse – I mean, we get paid, we got a house, a home, we got Jimi, and we still got Bobby, and my Baby, and an awesome spa bath…"

It was as Dean had suspected; the rounds were not as accurate as the lead ones he'd first put into the target with his usually immaculate aim and grouping.

"It's the finish," he complained, examining an unfired round, "They just don't have the same finish."

"Silver melts at a much higher temperature than lead," Sam reminded him, "And is a much harder metal, it's got twice the rating on Mohs Scale."

"Mo?" Dean queried, "Like, the Three Stooges?"

"You are such a simple creature," Sam said, "There are days when I wonder how you evolved. Mohs Scale is rating system for comparing the relative hardness of various materials…" He looked at the grin that spread across Dean's face, and threw him a savage Bitchface #10 (Tonight You Die In Your Sleep). "Don't. Don't. You. Dare. Go. There. God, you are just a disgusting creature, I wonder if there's an alternative reality anywhere where you are not a disgusting creature or if it's just one of those physical properties of creation…"

They were headed back through the corridors of the FOOCER building when they heard a sharp pop, and a curse. A gust of blue smoke drifted out of a doorway, so they went to investigate.

It turned out to be a room, cluttered with all sorts of occult and electronic detritus, that would put the average on-screen wizard's workshop to shame. Sitting at a bench, staring into a mortar, was a young man they recognised.

"Kevin?" said Sam.

Kevin looked up. "Hey, Sam, Harry," he smiled, waving a hand in front of his face. "Sorry about the smoke," he said sheepishly, "But I gotta get this working. Hey, have you been trying out those silver rounds?"

"Yeah," Dean confirmed, covering his surprise at meeting up with Kevin, "They, uh, they aint the best ammo I've ever used."

"They're crap," Kevin told him glumly. "They're better than what we can usually get hold of, but they're still crap." He picked up a pencil, and began to sketch on one of several pads strewn around the crowded workshop. "Part of the problem is the pour – you can't heat your mould too much, or it starts to change shape, and the metal cools faster at the top…"

"Have you tried insulating the sprue plate?" asked Dean, drawn into the problem-solving. Then, without thinking, out popped, "Ronnie said she uses a mixture of plaster of Paris and some other stuff…"

His voice trailed off as he saw the way Kevin was looking at him. It was a mixture of regret and sorrow.

"Oh, Dean, I'm sorry," he said in a small voice, "Really, I didn't mean to… I'm, I'm really sorry…"

"Uh, that's okay," Dean made himself smile into Kevin's worried eyes, "It's okay. I'm okay. Really."

"I read the report," Kevin said, dropping his eyes. "Bits of it. Because of my job here, with the technical stuff." He paused. "You didn't mention anything about that, when…" he gulped. "After it… you know."

"Well, it must just have, you know, popped up when you started talking about it," Dean said in what he hoped was a reassuring voice. "Seriously, Kevin, it's okay. It really is."

Kevin looked up at him. "You're amazing, you know?" he almost whispered.

Dean's mind boggled, and he saw from Sam's expression that his brother was just as bemused. "Well, yeah," he let a half-strength version of the Killer Smile slide onto his face, "It goes with the territory. But you're just as awesome, in your own way. Doin'…" he waved a hand around at the workshop. "All this. And…"

His eye fell on a book he recognised; it was the grimoire that had belonged to Leslie's mother.

"…And dealing with stuff, and, and, yeah, that's why they call you Q, right?"

Kevin managed a smile. "Yeah," he agreed, "That's true." He turned to follow Dean's line of sight. "That's what I'm doing here," he explained, "I gotta work out how to, like, defuse the thing before we try to destroy it." He stood up. "If you're done, I might go dig out those rounds, put 'em in the back-to-the-CAD-screen pile."

"Yeah," Sam managed to smile, "Go to it. I'm sure you'll work it out."

"Feel free to come and join me any time you wanna get your hands dirty," he offered, disappearing in the direction of the firing range.

"What the hell was that about?" Dean wondered. "Ronnie? Why did mention of her upset Kevin so much?"

"She's not in the FOOCER files," Sam reminded him, "But apparently, somewhere, in this reality, she is – or was – known to you, at least. And to Kevin, somehow."

"You think…" Dean looked at his brother, his eyes suddenly filled with what Sam recognised as impending self-recrimination, "You don't think it was, you know, we were on a job or something, and she was with us, and, and I screwed up, and it all went south and then she…"

"Stop," Sam told him brother, "Stop right there. We don't know, Dean. Right now, we don't know what happened, so don't you dare start beating yourself up over something that may not have even happened. Come on, let's head back to the offices – if there's some report somewhere, we can look for it, and find out what actually happened."

"Yeah, yeah, that's a plan," Dean nodded, "So, let's go, and you can get onto it. Right after you've finished the other bit of research."

"What's that?" asked Sam.

"Well, duh," Dean rolled his eyes, "You still haven't found out why everybody keeps callin' me Harry!"

* * *

><p>Oo-er, whatever is Monty-Fred up to?<p>

Happy Sneak Like A Ninja Day! Also Happy Plot Bunnies Parade Around Like Kim Kardashian's Arse Day! May your plot bunnies be gracious, loquacious and bodacious. And may you sneak around in a ninja-like fashion.


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter Ten**

"Nothing," griped Sam, staring at the PC as if it was intentionally withholding information for the express purpose of annoying him, "I can't find anything about cursing people you want to throw out of your own reality." A ping announced the arrival of an email, and when he opened it, he couldn't help but smile. "Hey, get this – we're being told we've accumulated too much leave, and we gotta take some by the end of the financial quarter."

"Yeah?" Dean looked up from the laptop, incredulous. "I'm bein' told that I need a vacation?"

"According to this," Sam indicated the screen. "It's addressed to you as well. 'In line with fiscal policy and employee welfare best practice'."

"So, leave," Dean mused, "That's like where you get paid to go away and not come to work?"

"That's essentially it," Sam agreed.

Dean's face lit up. "Awesome!" he chirped.

"It might give us a chance to spend less time trying to fit in here, and more time trying to work out what the hell has happened to get us here," Sam suggested. "And now it's bugging me as to where Ronnie fits into this reality." His eyes slid sideways to his brother. "From the way Kevin behaved, it suggests that you had some sort of… involvement."

Dean's head shot up, and he looked panicked. "Involvement?" he echoed.

"Yeah," Sam went on, "You saw how Kevin was. Maybe in this reality, Ronnie is – or was – a Hunter, and somebody you were close to, and something happened to her. Maybe you were in some sort of relationship…"

"Gaaaaah!" Dean let out a strangled noise of horror. "No! No! Absolutely not! That totally is not right!"

"It could be, bro," Sam persisted.

"No, it aint," Dean stated firmly, "Because frankly, this reality is a pretty cool one, and in this pretty cool reality, the Living Sex God would never limit himself to just one woman, and if he did, it sure as hell wouldn't be a woman who…"

"Could knock you on your ass?" offered Sam serenely.

"No…"

"Has bigger arms than you?"

"No!"

"Has a more impressive jawline than you?"

"Sam!" Dean yapped irritably, "What I'm sayin' is, not if she was the last female in the world! Some things are universal constants, and that's one of 'em!"

"You don't know that for sure," Sam said slyly, trying to stifle a grin.

"Yeah, I do," Dean grumped, turning back to the laptop. "So shut up."

"Well, I haven't found a death certificate," Sam let the topic drop, "But if we can figure out this curse and get back to our own reality, it won't matter anyway. Are you making any progress?"

"Not really," Dean sighed. "In Norwegian, it's an insult to somebody…"

"Huh?" Sam looked up mystified.

"Harry," Dean explained. "In Norway, callin' somebody a 'harry' is sayin' they're cheesy, or got bad taste…"

"What are you doing?" demanded Sam. "You're supposed to be researching this curse, not your damned nickname!"

"How do you know it isn't part of the curse?" sniffed Dean disdainfully. "Hey, maybe it's from Dirty Harry, because I'm totally awesome, like Clint Eastwood."

"Or maybe it's Harry Palms, because you're such a jerk," suggested Sam.

"Bitch. Or it could be because I'm like Prince Harry, you know, a totally awesome, totally eligible bachelor who will never settle down, much to the dismay of women everywhere."

"Look, can you just let the Harry thing go for a bit, and get back to work?" asked Sam in a tone that didn't hold out much hope.

"I could get on with planning our vacation," grinned Dean, "Find us somewhere that's dog friendly, so we can take Jimi, maybe do some fishing, meet some frisky women…"

"Fine," grunted Sam, "You do that, then fill in the form."

"What form?"

"Leave form," Sam replied, "You can't just take off, you gotta fill in a form."

"But we got a message, tellin' us we gotta go on vacation!"

"Yeah, but you gotta get approval first."

"So, they tell us to go away, but first we have to get the okay to go away, after they told us we have to," Dean shook his head. "That's nuts."

"That's workin' for The Man," Sam told him.

"I need more coffee," Dean announced, "And doughnuts. You want one?"

"Yeah," Sam answered distractedly as a search result window popped up, "Just remember what I showed you, let the first bit go through so it's not bitter."

"Yeah, yeah," muttered Dean, heading out towards the meeting room with Jimi following him, apparently having heard the d-word out loud and deciding that tagging along was worth the possibility of delicious doughy goodness completely unsuitable for canine consumption.

There was another ping as a background search Sam had initiated earlier threw up a file, but it was locked. He tried a couple of things, to no avail, and frowned at the icon. Why would it be off-limits?

After a moment's thought, he checked the directory, and called Charlie.

"O Hail, Her Majesty Queen Sys-Op," he began.

"What do you want, Winchester?" came the amused voice.

"Access to a file." He gave her the designation, and heard the clack of a keyboard.

"Hang on… uh, why would you want to look at that?" she asked in a hesitant voice. "I mean, I can authorise it, for you, but…"

"Dean remembered something," he offered, recalling how Kevin had reacted, "It could be important for something that… Q is working on."

"Well, okay," Charlie sounded reluctant, but there was the sound of a keyboard rattling again, "Just let me know as soon as you're finished. This is not something that can be left available for anyone to look at, you understand that."

"Of course not," Sam assured her, "Thanks Charlie."

A minute later, a notification arrived, and he was able to open the file.

**...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... **

The file was large, with many documents in it, but it didn't take Sam long to skim through various documents to get the gist.

About twenty years earlier, something strange had started happening to fuglies in the USA. Vampires were found with their heads torn clean off. Wendigos were dismembered, and rugarus gutted, before being set on fire. Werewolves were found with their throats torn out, a couple of them feral alpha males. Big bads were being tackled – and killed – by something else big and bad.

But it didn't just kill big bads; it killed any Hunters that got too close. Worse than that, there was some indication that it liked to play with its prey.

At the same time, stories began to circulate amongst FOOCER operatives about an unauthorised Hunter, someone who Hunted with dogs. It caused headaches for FOOCER when the UH didn't always clean up the aftermath as well as a Hunter should, as if not really caring much about who found the kills.

Under such circumstances, attempts were normally made to shut down a UH if they weren't up to the job, or bring them into the fold if they were any good. But Hunters who got too close ended up dead.

It wasn't until a couple of bodies were found that two facts were established by the post mortem examinations: It was a woman. And, if the Hunter was an attractive man, she also liked to… play with her prey before killing.

Nobody, not even with the blackest humour, made jokes about those men dying happy.

If it hadn't been for the bodies, she could've been an urban legend, something to scare raw recruits with – she'd Hunt, then drop off the radar, then just when FOOCER thought that the job must finally have caught up with her, there'd be another report of a nest of vampires – or a Hunter – torn to pieces. In fact, FOOCER weren't able to pull together any solid intel until something astonishing happened.

A Hunter didn't just spot her, but tangled with her, and escaped alive.

He was able to provide detailed info on her appearance, accent, dogs and the fact that she was a self-aware Old North Werewolf; the latter would explain why ordinary ammunition barely seemed to affect her. It pulled together the two mysterious entities into a picture of a someone with a taste for mayhem, murder and sexual assault. A sketch was produced. A positive ID was made.

Veronica Claire Shepherd. Hunter, Werewolf, psychopath.

There were professional opinions from profilers, psychiatrists specialising in dealing with the violently criminal, professors of occult and psychological studies, Persons of Knowledge. There was much speculation about how she'd learned control, what motivated her, what had turned her from a Hunter on the cusp of coming-of-age into a monster, and how she might be dealt with to FOOCER's best advantage.

There was also a transcription from an interview with a FOOCER Hunter.

_She aint crazy, you know. I know all the eggheads are knockin' 'emselves out, tryin' to figure out what's wrong with her, and how to fix it, but she aint crazy. Completely the opposite. She's just bad. She knows it, and she enjoys it. No amount o' talk, or therapy, or tough love, or milk bones will get her inside our tent and pissing out. I know they're just dyin' to figure out how she learned to control it, but I'm tellin' ya, you don't need to know. You don't put a T. rex in a playpen, and tell yourself you can contain it while you teach it to walk nicely on a leash. You don't try to study something like that – you find a way to track it, then kill it, and be done with it. _

That excerpt was from a bedside interview with the only Hunter who'd ever encountered her and survived.

Dean Winchester.

**...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... **

Sam was still sitting at his PC in shock when Dean reappeared, a coffee in each hand and a doughnut in his mouth, while Jimi trotted back to his basket, licking crumbs from his whiskers.

"Hrr yr grr," Dean put Sam's coffee down, and sat down himself, chewing noisily and peering at the screen. "Here ya go, one girly-man emo-wimp special. So, are we any closer to gettin' back to our own crappy reality?"

"Well, no," Sam told him in a distracted voice, gesturing to the screen, "But I have figured out your nickname, why people keep calling you Harry."

"Yeah?" Dean grinned, and scooted his chair around to read the screen. "It's Dirty Harry, isn't it? Some fugly somewhere just made my day."

"Dean…"

"What am I lookin' at here?" asked Dean, scanning the document, "The case file for my Harry Callahan moment?"

"Not Harry Callahan, Dean. You're Harry Potter." He turned to look at his brother. "You're The Boy Who Lived."

* * *

><p>Well, evil!Ronnie did have her proponents. But so did amorous!Ronnie. However shall we resolve the two? Feed Monty-Fred the plot bunny delicious reviews and let's find out, because Reviews are the Unexpected Leftover And Not Gone Stale Yet Doughnuts Found In The Tearoom Of Life!<p> 


	11. Chapter 11

Dashing 'cross the screen

With a demon at their heels,

Here come Sam and Dean

To kick you in the feels,

You may see flexing back,

You may see heaving chest,

But 'til they move to HBO

You'll never see the rest

Oh,

Nudity, fangirls squee,

Nekkid Hunter bros,

Oh what fun it is to think

About them without clothes,

Oh,

Nudity, crudity,

Rudity, and then

Oh what fun the Denizens

Have with G.W.N.

* * *

><p><span><strong>Chapter Eleven<strong>

Dean sat staring at the screen, his mouth fallen open as he read through the contents of the file. The last of the doughnut dropped from his hand, where it was quickly snuffled up by Jimi, who fell upon it like a tween girl upon a beach towel with a boy band printed on it.

"She… and then… and afterwards… huh?" his eyes bugged as he looked through 'his' medical file following the encounter. "So, mostly she just kills Hunters, but with these guys, she beat the crap out of 'em, and then… is that even possible?"

"She has done before, but she didn't manage it with you." Sam gave his brother a wry smile. "You managed to do what nobody else could."

"I stuck a knife in her. It's just one of those universal constants again," Dean hummed with some satisfaction. "Thanks to Dean Winchester's awesomeness as a Hunter, whatever reality he may be in, he never goes anywhere without a silver blade."

"Well, I was gonna say, you made her angry," Sam clarified, "In accordance with another apparent universal constant: Dean Winchester's God-given talent for annoying one Veronica Shepherd. Up until you, she'd always been as cool as a cucumber: casual about it while she shreds some poor bastard. Right up until she encountered FOOCER-Dean, who managed to set some sort of PB in werewolf provocation – her thoughts went from 'mate' to 'irate' to 'exterminate' at the speed of outrage."

"You can bet your ass she started it," commented Dean tartly, "That's another universal constant."

Sam rolled his eyes and gave Dean a Bitchface #8™ (You Are Now Officially Talking Complete Shit, Dean). "Let's just accept the assumption that this is one more reality where you two idiots push each other's buttons with the enthusiasm of a crackpot jihadist left alone in a missile silo. But that was when the teeth and claws started to show, and FOOCER-Dean figured out that she was a werewolf. _Then_ he stuck a silver knife in her. This would explain the scars on your chest; she was goin' for the heart. And she really did a number on you, bro."

"Yeah," Dean agreed, taking in the list of injuries he'd sustained in the encounter, but sounding slightly smug nonetheless. "But I still stuck a knife in her." He kept reading. "Where did you find this?"

"It's a protected file," Sam told him, "Because it's got your medical stuff in it – but I talked to Charlie, and told her that you remembered something relevant to Kevin's work, and she let me have a look at it."

"Don't see why," Dean shrugged, "Everybody knows that I was attacked, hence the name Harry."

"Yeah, but not everybody knows just how badly you were injured," Sam explained.

"What a load of crap," scoffed Dean, "I got a few boo-boos from tangling with that cranky cow…"

"Dean, it wasn't just physical injuries that FOOCER were worried about," Sam clarified. "There were, er, psychological issues."

Dean did a convincing impression of a goldfish, or possibly an ex _Big Brother_ contestant being informed that the fact that anybody watching after dark had seen their bare arse did not entitle them to an upgrade from economy to first class the next time they flew to Bali to try to drum up more personal publicity in one more desperate attempt to translate their complete lack of talent for being entertaining into a career as some sort of 'media celebrity' (probably by baring their arse again). "What?"

"Here. After the attack, it says you developed, uh, unhealthy behaviours." Sam scanned down the page. "Excessive alcohol consumption… some sort of hero complex… self-doubt… risk-taking behaviour, lack of concern for personal welfare… engaging in rampant casual sex…"

"Show me that," snapped Dean, grabbing the mouse, muttering to himself as he read. "Huh? This is ridiculous! Any Hunter who's frightened of gettin' their hands dirty, or gettin' a skinned knee, is more of a liability than an asset. And of course I drink! Anybody who had to put up with your music and your man-periods would drink. And there aint nothing wrong with casual sex, especially when we're talkin' about the Living Sex God, I mean, that's not pathology, Sam, it's practically a public service…"

"That's not the way that FOOCER sees it," Sam interrupted. "It looks like FOOCER-Dean's encounter with Ronnie basically, uh, turned him into, well, you."

"Good," grunted Dean, "At least something good came out of it."

"FOOCER doesn't agree," Sam informed him. "You went within an ace of being declared medically unfit to continue active duty."

"Well that's just bullshit," growled Dean, "Because self-doubt or not, I do know that I'm a totally awesome Hunter. I'm Harry! False modesty sucks, dude."

"Which is why Bobby spoke up for you," Sam said.

"Well, good," humphed Dean in a miffed tone. "You don't get rid of your best Hunters just because women find him irresistible."

"There is something really wrong with a guy who talks about himself in the third person," Sam muttered, "Anyway, hopefully we'll be out of here and back to our own reality ASAP, and FOOCER-Dean can get on with his rehab…"

"Hey, hey, hold up," Dean cut him off. "We aint goin' anywhere until we finish what I started. What FOOCER-me started. We gotta stop FOOCERverse Ronnie."

"What?" Sam stared at his brother.

"Bobby asked us if we had a case lined up," Dean reasoned, "So, we tell him I remembered something, and Ronnie is our next case."

"Dean, he'll never let you go after her," Sam stated, "Besides, there's some speculation here as to whether she's even alive after you wounded her. She hasn't been spotted for almost a year, now."

"Yeah, right." Dean turned and grinned at him. "Would you believe that Ronnie Shepherd was dead without seein' her cold corpse with your own eyes?"

"Probably not," Sam conceded.

"She's just gone to ground, again," Dean mused, flicking back a couple of pages. "Could be Hunting, but cleaning up after herself. Or she could be plannin' something." He looked wistfully down at beagle-Jimi, who turned on the Big Brown Eyes just in case there were more doughnuts. "Shame we don't have half-Hellhound half-Rottie Jimi with us – with him runnin' interference, Team Winchester would totally win."

"Well, we don't," Sam stated practically, leaning down to scratch beagle-Jimi's ears. "He's here for moral support, though. That hasn't changed. He's got his own designation, like Rumsfeld: Canine Personnel Welfare Officer."

"Does this office have anybody that Hunts with dogs?" asked Dean.

Sam tapped at the computer. "Don't get any ideas," he grinned, "The waiting list to do the course just to qualify to request to present yourself to the Wildhunt or Jaegerhund kennels, with no guarantee at all that a pup will Choose you, is as long as your arm, and the prerequisite qualifications list is even longer. Canine training theory, plus practical, canine psychology, canine nutrition and husbandry… that'd be you out to start with, once they found out about the junk you're willing to feed to a four-legged friend..."

"What the hell?" Dean sounded mystified. "Don't these people realise that if a Hunting dog pup picks you out, that means you're suitable?"

"I guess that in this reality, Hunting dogs are acknowledged as a scarce and valuable resource," Sam postulated, "So you gotta tick all the boxes. They're very specific bloodlines, people can't just summon dogs like that outta thin air…"

He heard the sharp intake of breath beside him, and got a look at Dean's face. His big brother had gone very still – and then Dean's face formed into a smiling expression.

Sam realised that he was familiar with that expression, a smile that was a combination of happiness, anticipation, and shithouse-rat cunning.

It was the face of a boy who had just noticed that the babysitter is so engrossed in helping Sammy retie his shoe that he has a narrow but adequate window during which the contents of the cookie jar are fair game. The face of a teenager who realises that the security camera doesn't cover the corner of the store where the cheapest booze is kept, and the cashier is more interested in watching football than the store anyway. It was the face of a young man watching a girl's father drive away from her house, a house with an ivy trellis running up the wall as far as her bedroom window. It was the face of his brother spotting a canister of salt, and recognising that if he adds enough of it to the popcorn, Sam will turn his nose up at it, and he'll have the whole bowl to himself.

It was the expression Dean wore when Dean Had Figured Out How To Get What Dean Wanted.

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Sam's eyes narrowed. "Dean," he began in a warning tone.

"You're a genius, Sam!" Dean chirped happily, "You're a total genius!"

"I am?" Sam was nonplussed.

"Totally!" confirmed Dean, his face creasing in thought. "So, from memory, the doily was the important bit, because of the design in it, the rest was just kinda window-dressing. Time for you to do your laptop-dancing, Samantha," he instructed. "Find me Bobby's house."

"Huh?" Sam's eyebrows shot up. "Why do we need to know where Bobby's house is?"

"Becaaaaause," Dean rolled his eyes, "We gotta go break in."

"Break in? No, hold it, hold it right there," Sam forestalled his brother, "We are NOT breaking into Bobby's house! Come on, this is Bobby! It'll be warded against everything up to and including demons! We try to break in, we'll end up turned into, into, I don't know, ducks or something!"

"Ducks?" Dean looked at his brother. "Ducks? Hey, are you suggesting that Bobby would… duck with us?"

"No, Dean, what I am suggesting is that…"

"Heh heh, don't try to burgle Bobby, you'll end up totally ducked!"

"Yeah, possibly, but really we shouldn't…"

"He could just tell us to duck off."

"DEAN!" Sam snapped out a crushing Bitchface #14™ (There Are Times When Your Behaviour Is So Reckless I Wonder If You Took Lessons As A Small Child) in his brother's direction. "Stop. Just stop. Just put aside the fact that there is no way, no _way_, we could break into Bobby's place and get away with it – why the hell would you want to break into Bobby's place to start with?"

"Well, because we need the doily, duh," Dean rolled his eyes.

"What doily?" Sam demanded. "Did you fall off the damned bike and hit your head? What the fuck are you talking about?"

"You know, the doily," Dean insisted. "The doily. It's got little glass beads around it. I'm gonna need it."

"What _for_, Dean?"

"For your brilliant plan!" Dean beamed as brilliantly as the apparent plan was. "You said it yourself. People can't just summon dogs like that outta thin air. Ordinary people, no – but I can!"

"Dean, what the fuck are you rambling about?" demanded Sam. "What exactly is it you're proposing to do?"

"What I did before, Sammy," Dean offered his most winning smile, "I'm gonna summon me a Hellhound to Hunt with us; I'm gonna summon Jimi Senior!"

* * *

><p>Oh dear. We should probably be worried. (You can read about how Dean first summoned Jimi Senior, a Hellhound, in 'Can We Keep Him?' which explains where the doily comes into it.) What is likely to happen to anybody who tries to break into Bobby's house? He'll be pretty ducking cheesed off if he catches them...<p>

I think the plot bunnies are proposing to go into a Christmas shutdown, those lazy leporids, so send reviews, because Reviews Are The Mince Pies That Send Plot Bunnies Into Sugar-Crazed Hyperactivity In The Christmas Lead-up Of Life!


	12. Chapter 12

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!

*Lampito runs in and slams door behind her*

Oh, thank dog for that – I think I've **finally** managed to escape Real Life for a moment. The last two weeks or so have been just hideous – not only was I constantly assailed by the Annoyingly Solid Parsnip Of Mundane Reality, but I was attacked by a Christmas. Srsly. It was all just dreadful. I mean, I usually get stalked by one about this time of the year, but I nearly didn't get out alive. It scared the plot bunnies so much, that every single one of them ran away. And I don't blame them.

But for the moment, I am back, and have managed to get another chapter out of little Monty-Fred. Hopefully this will get wiya, and any carroty colleagues of wiya's, back into the swing of dictating, we'll see.

* * *

><p><span><strong>Chapter Twelve<strong>

Sam stared at his brother. "You did fall of that damned bike, didn't you?" he stated flatly. "You fell off, and hit your head, and didn't tell me, and that idiotic 'I'm-Your-Big-Brother-Don't-Worry-About-Me-I-Look-After-You' streak kicked in, and you didn't tell me, and now you're concussed, and possibly got a blood clot on your common sense lobe…"

"Sam, this'll work," Dean said confidently, "I did it before, I can do it again. It's bloodlines, bro – I'm the Dominican, the Lord of the Hounds, Official Hellhound Whisperer Dude."

"I take that back," humphed Sam, "You don't have a blood clot on your common sense lobe; you obviously had some sort of massive stroke in that area of your brain years ago, and there's nothin' left there but some scar tissue and a few stray neurons that use an amino acid undescribed anywhere in science except your brain as a neurotransmitter – it's called stupiditate."

"I have no idea what you just said," Dean informed Sam breezily, "But whatever it was, you're totally wrong."

"Look, technically, in this reality, you're not the Dominican yet," Sam pointed out, "That didn't kind of kick in until you'd already summoned Jimi Senior. Or Belisarius, as he was, the Alpha of the Infernal Pack."

"But I could summon him because I was The One," Dean insisted, "Come on, Sam, you gotta take the red pill with me here."

"You don't even know if Bobby has that doily in this reality," Sam noted.

"Oh, he'll have it," Dean grinned. "Bobby got his collection of doilies from lady acquaintances he's met in the course of Huntin', who send him baked goodies, right?"

"Yeah," Sam's tone indicated that he didn't follow his brother's train of thought, or if he did, he was only keeping the caboose in sight out of morbid curiosity because the derailments could be so baffling as to be amusing.

"Well, in this reality, he's not just a Hunter, he's been a professional Hunter," Dean theorised, "So think about how many women he'll have encountered!"

"It doesn't follow," Sam sighed, "We can't know that."

"Oh, come on, Sam," Dean wheedled, "Look at him! He's shaped like a guy who eats lots of baked goodies!"

"Maybe he just eats too many bacon cheeseburgers," Sam remarked pointedly, "Take a good look at him, Dean, he could just be the ghost of Waistlines Yet To Come."

"He didn't eat any doughnuts at our meeting," Dean said portentously.

"So?" shrugged Sam. "Maybe his doctor has read him the riot act about his cholesterol."

"Nope," Dean shook his head, "A Hunter not eatin' any doughnuts when they're put in front of him, that's the sign of a man who's already helped himself to delicious baked treats at home, maybe for breakfast. Either that, or he's seriously some sort of freak."

"I didn't eat any doughnuts," Sam reminded his brother.

"See my comment about bein' some sort of freak," Dean countered dismissively.

"This is a bad idea," Sam reiterated, "This is a really bad idea. A really, really bad idea."

"It's our best shot at taking her down," Dean said firmly, "At the very least, we'll need some way of runnin' interference on at least one dog. We cannot, can NOT, walk away from this reality, leavin' a monster like that on the loose, when we know how to deal with it, so but me no buts, Francis."

"I'm tellin' you, Bobby will never give you the okay to just pick up and go chasing after her," Sam restated, "And nobody's seen any sign of her for nearly twelve months, since your, uh, encounter."

"Which is where you come in," Dean said firmly, "You get on that laptop, you whisper sweet nothings into its circuits, and you find her. It's what you do. Meanwhile," he grinned, "I will be plannin' our extra-curricular activities for tonight."

"I don't suppose there's any way I can talk you out of this?" Sam practically wailed.

"Nope," Dean turned back to the PC, laced his fingers and cracked his knuckles like a pianist about to commit Rachmaninov. "How many B&Es have we done, Sam? We know what we're looking for, we know where it'll be, we'll be in and out like a sixteen-year-old trainspotter in a whorehouse."

"How do we know where it'll be?" demanded Sam.

"It'll be in a box under the stairs," Dean replied confidently, "Because FOOCER-Bobby is batching it, and he'll have stashed his junk around his house the same way he does in any other reality. These doilies arrive wrapped around baked goods, so all we gotta do is follow the smell of gingerbread crumbs."

"Great," griped Sam, "Like Hansel and Gretel. Let's just hope we don't have to push the cranky old witch into his own oven to make our getaway."

**...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... **

There were the small tells – wards and sigils and suchlike – that would, to a Hunter, indicate that another Hunter lived there, but other than that, everything about Bobby's home was, well, normal to look at. It was a very normal looking house, on a normal looking street, in a normal looking neighbourhood, not so very far from their 'own' house, bearing a resemblance to the house of Singer Salvage, with a normal looking fence and a normal looking garden and a normal looking.

There was so much normal that it set Dean's teeth on edge.

"This place is really creeping me out," he complained from the darkness of the Impala, taking a drink from the flask he always managed to have somewhere to hand, even when he was wearing nothing but an undersized motel towel.

"What?" asked Sam, peering out at the house, where no lights were on, "You pickin' up some weird vibe? It looks completely normal to me."

"Exactly!" stated Dean, "It's Bobby's house, lookin' completely normal, which aint normal, because not normal is normal for Bobby's place, and normally this sort of normal would worry me, because anything _that_ normal cannot be, you know…"

"Normal?" suggested Sam, with an eyeroll that was audible in the dark.

"Well, yeah," Dean said, checking several occult items that he had about his person. "So, we gotta be careful of the normal. And the not normal, too, this is Bobby's house."

"Got it," humphed Sam, silently sliding from the car and following his brother. "I really would rather come with you, have your back."

"If somethin' goes wrong, I'll need you out here to get ready to make a quick getaway," Dean said firmly. "You get me through the mine field, then hightail your ass back here."

Mumbling about his big brother's recklessness, Sam set to locating and deactivating the charms, wards and a couple of very interesting occult traps so that they could approach the shadows along the side of the house.

"Are we good to go?" Dean asked quietly.

"Almost," Sam murmured back, peering at a sigil inscribed on the wall, "Just this last one, and then…"

There was an almost inaudible 'pop', and a small crackle of ozone.

"What the fuck was that?" hissed Dean. "Watch where you're puttin' your feet, so to speak."

"Cluck cluck cluck cluck!" replied Sam in a low angry tone. "Cluck cluck clu- cluck? Cluck? Cluck!"

Dean couldn't help but grin. "Uh, did you fuck up, Francis?"

"Cluck cluck cluck!" went Sam.

"Oh, sorry – I meant, did you cluck up, Francis?"

"Cluck cluck pekaaark!" went Sam, pulling a Bitchface™ (Cluck Cluck Cluck Dean, Cluck CLUCK You).

"So Bobby didn't actually duck with us after all," Dean added.

Sam glared at him.

"Okay, okay, don't lay an egg," Dean told his brother, "Gimme a boost, then get back to the car and undo whatever the fuck – whatever the cluck, heh heh – you just triggered."

"Cluck, Dean, cluck cluck CLUCK cluck!" insisted Sam.

"Look, I know what I'm lookin' for, and I know where it'll be," Dean tried to reassure his little brother, "You just go, you know, dechicken yourself, and be ready to head out." He paused. "And don't scratch up my upholstery, Henny Penny. Now, gimme a boost."

Glaring as crankily as the most bad-tempered chicken who's been chased around the yard once too often by a small yappy dog, Sam looked as though he was contemplating pecking his brother, but nonetheless bent to help Dean get up to the window, where he popped the lock, opened it, and slipped silently into the house.

**...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... **

Once inside, the sense of too-normal-to-be-normal abated somewhat; the interior of the house suggested that it was occupied by a batchelor with an esoteric academic bent, a sort of shabby-chic that was a diluted version of the Singer Salvage he was accustomed to, which was not so much shabby-chic as post-hurricane-deco.

Wielding his small flashlight so as not to bump into anything, Dean made his way to the stairs, and located the cupboard underneath. It wasn't difficult to open, and he quickly located the crumpled cardboard box. He'd been right; the smell of gingerbread was lingering on the doilies it contained.

Working quickly, he pulled the box from the recess, and started to work his way through the contents, eyes and fingers alert for the glass decorations that would identify the one he was looking for.

With a small hiss of triumph, his hand closed on a handful of lacey crochet with the beads worked into the edging – just as he heard the unmistakeable click of a weapon being cocked behind him, as a grumpy voice behind him commanded:

"Okay, mister, put 'em where I can see 'em."

* * *

><p>Rolling 'cross the floor, with a stomachful of snack,<br>If I eat any more, the floor is gunna crack,  
>I ate my Christmas lunch, then ate my Christmas tea,<br>Then eating up the leftovers has quite expanded me,

Oh,  
>Christmas food, baked and stewed, boiled or grilled or fried,<br>Didn't eat 'til bursting, although Cas knows that I tried,

Oh,  
>Tater tots, chocolate pots, mince pies, prawns and chips,<br>One week of delicious treats has gone straight to my hips.

Feed Monty-Fred the plot bunny nice reviews, to encourage further dictation, and feed me imaginary celery sticks and cottage cheese to encourage further deflation. Le sigh.


	13. Chapter 13

Well, the bad news is, I've finished my leave, and am back at work (le sigh), but the good news is, Monty-Fred the plot bunny has popped out of hiding to dictate the next chapter...

* * *

><p><span><strong>Chapter Thirteen<strong>

It was not the first time that Bobby had caught Dean red-handed, bang to rights, fingers in the cookie jar, or in flagrante delicto. Nor was it the first time that Bobby had threatened to fill him full of birdshot. However, it had the potential to be the first occasion where he didn't so much mean 'You near gave me a heart attack wiith your shenanigans, boy' as 'What's mine is mine and what's thine is thine and right now thou art standing in mine unannounced unexpected and uninvited and if thou doesn't have a reeeeeal good explanation I'm gonna fill thy sorry ass with lead'.

"Hey Bobby!" Dean turned around, hands up, and smiled cheerfully, deciding that getting torn a new one by Bobby was probably better than trying to make a run for it and getting torn a new one by Bobby's shotgun, "Sorry to wake you up."

Bobby gawped at him, but didn't, Dean noticed, lower the weapon. "Dean?" he asked tentatively, reaching out to flick on a light switch. "What the hell are you doin' in my house in the middle of the night?"

Dean considered his options, that is, he ran through several lies to see which was most likely to get past Bobby's bullshit detector without dying in a hail of fully automatic disbelief.

_I was driving past your house, and thought I saw something weird, and thought I'd check it out._

Wouldn't even make it over the parapet.

_I was walking past your house, and I think something weird was following me._

Might get two steps before being peppered with full metal jacket scepticism.

_I was being chased by a woman._

Hmmm, probably only get as far as the first raised eyebrow.

_I was being chased by a woman – but I don't think she's really a woman._

Okaaay, could get as far as the scornful snort of disdain, but no further.

_I was being chased by a female impersonator._

Surprise value might get that one to the next trench…

_I was being chased by a female impersonator who I think is some sort of fugly of ambiguous sexual identity._

Nope.

_In fact, I think I was being chased by an alien. _

More nope.

_In drag._

Nope nope nope.

_I was sleepwalking. No, actually, I was sleepthieving. Don't try to wake me up, it could be dangerous and I could hurt myself._

So much nope. That was the problem with telling a lie, you had to be able to back it up and sound convincing, and trying to do that to a professional liar in such standing as Bobby, well, he might as well as set his own pants on fire and run around in little circles.

But maybe a half-truth, a lie with one foot resting tentatively on possibility, and the other with a toe on insanity…

Dean let his face assume a serious expression. "Bobby, I need one of your doilies," he intoned. "It's important. It's real important."

Truth so frequently being stranger than fiction, that stopped Bobby in his tracks. "A… a doily?" he echoed incredulously.

Dean nodded solemnly. "I need one," he repeated. "For a spell."

"A… Winchester, what the hell has gotten into you?" demanded Bobby.

"This is important, Bobby," Dean repeated, "I need a doily, for, for, for the spell." He added a sonorous burp.

Bobby blinked, then sniffed. "Dean," he began less suspiciously, "Have you… have you been drinkin', boy?"

Dean nodded again. "You would too, if you were gonna do what I'm gonna do," he said, letting himself sway slightly as he turned back to the box of doilies and began to search through the box, "Now, I'll need a good one…"

Bobby lowered his weapon, and grabbed Dean's shoulder. "Dean," the old man turned him around, a look of concern on his face, "Dean, listen to me. What spell do you need to do? What are you gonna summon?"

Eyes crossing ever so slightly. "I'm gonna summon… a Hellhound," he stated portentously.

Bobby gawped.

With slow and deliberate solemnity, Dean took the random other doily he'd grabbed from the box, and with all the ceremony of a prom queen donning her tiara, placed it on his head.

"Son," Bobby said in a calm tone, "Dean, you can't summon a Hellhound."

"Don't tell me what to do!" Dean pouted. "You're not the boss of me!"

Well actually… oh, balls," sighed Bobby, before continuing in a soothing voice, "I don't mean 'you're not allowed', what I mean is, it aint possible for you to summon a Hellhound."

"How do you know?" Dean shot back defiantly, "I've never tried before!"

"God's tits," muttered Bobby, then his voice took on the tone of somebody talking to a big happy dog that's trotting around with what looks suspiciously like a grenade in its mouth, "Dean, can you just, look, let's just sit down, okay, yeah, that's good, so, can you tell me why you want to summon a Hellhound?"

Dean leaned in and said in a conspiratorial whisper, "I'm going to use it to Hunt…"

"Yeah?" Bobby nodded encouragement.

"I'm gonna… I'm gonna…" Dean paused to burp again.

"What are you gonna do, Dean?" Bobby pressed, "What are you gonna Hunt?"

"I'm gonna summon a Hellhound, and use it to Hunt… _her_."

**...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... **

When his phone rang, Sam let it go through to messages, not wanting to give his brother the satisfaction of hearing him cluck like a chicken, but when he heard Bobby's worried voice telling him to come and pick up his brother immediately, he swore and glanced at his watch. When he thought that the elapsed time was appropriate for him to be woken from sleep, get the message, get dressed then go rushing to pick up his big brother, who was having some sort of alcohol-assisted vacation from reality, he got out of the car. After a moment's thought, he mussed up his hair to look as though he'd been pulled rudely from sleep, and headed in to knock on the front door.

When Bobby opened it, Sam put on his most worried face and shrieked "P-KAAAAAAAAARK!"

"What the… oh, come in, you idjit," Bobby ushered him through the door and reached for a small charm on a side table, "You're in such a rush you've triggered one o' the traps."

"Cluck cluck cluck claaaaark cluck clu- as soon as I got your message," Sam continued, looking around anxiously, "Where is he?"

"Through here," Bobby answered grimly, heading for the living room.

Dean was sitting cross-legged on the sofa like an aspiring bodhisattva who'd been thrown out of Buddha school for not being bald, roly-poly or enlightened enough, but was still appealing termination of candidature on the grounds of making up for lack of meditation with imbibation. Reeking of booze, with the doily on his head, he was reciting seriously: "Whelp of The Pit, I call you to my pack, I call you to my Hunt, I call you to my prey, whelp of The Pit, I call you to my pack, I call you to my Hunt, I call you to my prey…" As Bobby and Sam entered the room, he added an "Ommmmmm!" for good measure.

"Dean!" yelped Sam, "What are you doing?"

Dean opened one eye and frowned at him. "Can't talk, Sam, summoning," and went back to his mantra.

Bobby took Sam aside. "He says he's summonin' a Hellhound, to go Huntin' her," he murmured quietly.

"What?" Sam put on the most bemused expression he could managed, "That's nuts! Nobody can summon a Hellhound? And who's 'her'?"

Bobby's face became sad. "It's about a year since his run-in with that Shepherd woman," he said quietly. "And I know that your brother aint one to talk about his feelings, or anythin' like that, but I think it… affected him more than he's willing to let on." He turned to regard Dean with a worried expression. "He's been drinkin' again – how much has he had?"

"Too much," muttered Sam, mentally throwing up his hands in defeat and jumping on the crazy train. "I worry about him, Bobby." Then, because he just couldn't resist, he added, "He's been a bit… irrational."

"I worry too, son," confided the older man, "I just wish he'd been a bit more co-operative about talkin' to the counsellor."

An inspiration struck. "We've got lots of leave accrued," he pointed out, "And we're always getting messages from the bean counters telling us we're screwing with their balances, or something – maybe I could talk him into taking some time off."

Bobby's face broke into a smile. "I think that would be good for him," he agreed, "And it might help get the bean counters off my case, too. Just be careful how you do it," he cautioned, "Maybe raise it at home – we don't want another Spreadsheet Incident, I'm still gettin' the occasional memo about it."

"Oh, absolutely," Sam nodded vigorously, "I think some time off to just let him, you know, wind down a bit, do some fun stuff, take the time to pause and kick the roses, do his own therapy, might really help."

"I hope so," sighed Bobby, "Or I really am gonna have to insist that he goes to see Fergus."

"Fergus?" echoed Sam, mystified.

"Fergus McLeod?" Bobby cocked an eyebrow at him. "The counsellor? You know, the guy you all call 'Lucky the Leprechaun'," he went on in a disapproving tone. "Yeah, I know about that – and the cracks about his hairline. Just because you're not dumb enough to say it out loud in front of me don't mean I don't know about it. Not only is it inaccurate – leprechauns are Irish, and he aint – but that sort o' systematic belittlement is a form of workplace bullying, so you can put the word around that you're all sailin' very close to endin' up in an Equity and Diversity refresher workshop. With PowerPoint," he added pointedly.

"Uh, okay," Sam replied warily, "Well, I think we should do everything we can to avoid that." He turned back to his brother. "Uh, Dean, how long is this spell gonna take?"

"It takes as long as it takes, Sam," Dean replied seriously. "Ommmmmmm!"

"Yeah, well, the thing is," Sam's voice took on a wheedling tone, "It's taking a long time in the middle of the night, and it would probably be more sensible to be in bed, and, you know, pick it up again later, if you think it's necessary."

Dean opened one eye again, and squinted suspiciously at Sam. "You're not gonna tell me I can't summon a Hellhound?"

Sam shrugged. "Well, I'm not your mom," he replied. "I don't think it's a good idea, but you're an adult, right?"

"That's right," Dean nodded, "But _he _doesn't think so." He glared balefully at Bobby. "_He_ thinks I'm goin' nuts."

"Whoops, too late," Sam muttered under his breath. "No, really, I think it would be better to go home and get some sleep." He yawned hugely by way of demonstration. "I mean, if you're gonna summon a Hellhound, it will have heard you by now."

"You think?" queried Dean.

"Sure, bro," Sam said, "After all, they can find their way to anybody, anytime, any place. If it's gonna work, it'll have got the message by now."

"You hear that?" Dean declared triumphantly, smiling at Bobby, "It's on its way!"

"That's… great, Dean," Bobby made himself smile. "You just, uh, have a collar and leash ready when it arrives."

"I'm gonna have a Hellhound!" Dean beamed, standing up, "Dad would never let us have a dog." He turned to Sam. "We're gonna have one after all, Sammy!"

"Yeah, that's… great," Sam enthused with a distinct lack of enthusiasm.

"You can take a turn at walkin' him, if you like," Dean offered generously.

"Okay, bro.."

"You gotta take your turn at cleanin' up after him, too, you know, if he leaves bits of mangled sinner lyin' around in the yard."

"Yeah, I guess."

"And I will kiss him and love him and squeeze him and hug him and call him George…"

"Why don't we just go home, Dean," suggested Sam, attempting to usher his brother in the direction of the door.

Bobby watched on with an expression of sadness as Dean chattered happily to his brother about the impending 'arrival' of their diabolical Hunting dog; he'd watched Dean after the encounter with the she-werewolf, and knew it had affected the boy, but he cursed himself roundly for not realising just how bad it had been. There had been plenty of Hunters who had lost the plot because they'd known too much, seen too much, and done too much – it had happened to friends, and now he was worried that it was going to happen to his best Hunter…

He almost let out a sob when Dean did something quite unexpected and shouted "Pudding!" in a cheerful voice, before Sam let out a stifled shriek and practically dragged him out to the car.

"It's this damned job," the old man said thickly to nobody in particular as he waved them off, "This damned job gets to the best of 'em."

* * *

><p>Whilst I'm not prepared to drop my strides and yell about desserts, I'm wondering if doing something irrational in the workplace might get me an extended period of time off. Maybe wandering around with a knife from the kitchen, shrieking "All must pay! None shall be spared!" would do it.<p>

Anyway, send reviews, because they are the Amusing Irrational Act In The Mundane Normality Of Life!


	14. Chapter 14

**Chapter Fourteen**

"Call him George?" said Sam incredulously as they headed through the darkness back to their house, "Love him and pet him and call him George? A Hellhound named George?"

"Part of the act, Sammy," Dean grinned unrepentantly, "He'll be Jimi Senior, just like he always was."

"He won't show up," humphed Sam, "That wasn't the right doily, the one with the kappa-reidh motif through it."

"That one wasn't," Dean fished a glass-beaded doily out of his pocket, "But this one is. It's the real deal, this one will have J-Man the Elder back and rarin' to go before you can say Inspector Rex."

"Was the 'pudding' thing really necessary?" Sam pressed plaintively. "I mean, I know you're a guy who's always keen to get out of his pants, but there are limits, Dean."

"Crazy works," Dean shrugged, "We gotta hunt down Madam Maugrim before she can kill anybody else. Or worse. I owe it to hot guys all over the country to put her out of action – as the Living Sex God, I must lead the charge, and rid the planet of this menace to attractive men everywhere, I mean, we can't have the hot guys bein' killed off leaving the ugly ones behind to do the breeding…"

"Stop making jokes, it's not funny," snarled Sam. "This reality's Ronnie is a rapist as well as a murderer."

"All the more reason to take her down, is what I'm saying," nodded Dean. "Which is why it's so important that Bobby believe that I'm goin' nuts."

"I don't see what the problem is," Sam remarked trenchantly, "I was convinced years ago."

"You bein' such an expert, with bein' a total headcase yourself," sniffed Dean dismissively. "So, Bobby thinks I need time off to depressurise, we make like good little corporate citizens and take some time off, we go gank dark-side Lassie, Bobby happy, bean-counters happy, hot guys safe, then we can get to headin' back to our reality." He paused. "I mean, it's not so bad, as alternative realities go…"

"It's worse than you think," stated Sam glumly, "Bobby said that he'd really like you to talk to the staff counsellor."

"What would he like me to counsel him about?" Dean's eyebrows waggled. "Because if the guy needs some help with his sex life…"

Sam shot his brother a Bitchface #3™ (I Wish You'd Let Your Upstairs Brain Drive More Often). "The counsellor's name is Fergus McLeod."

Dean's eyebrows froze mid-waggle. "Huh? Fergus McLeod, as in…"

"AKA, Lucky the Leprechaun," Sam continued grimly, "Only, we've been officially warned that calling him that, or mentioning his hairline, constitutes bullying, and if he hears of us doing it again, we'll all end up in a collective punishment 'briefing'. With PowerPoint," he added ominously.

Dean's mouth dropped open. "Are you sayin'… Crowley is the staff shrink, and Bobby's tellin' us _not_ to hassle him? Wow," he breathed, "This reality is weirder than I thought." He paused. "So, if Crowley is our psych… who the hell is running Hell?"

"Good question," Sam noted.

"Fuck," muttered Dean, "You don't think it's that cow Abaddon?"

"We don't know," Sam stated. "For all we know, in this reality, it's still Lucifer, or maybe it's Cain. Hopefully, we can get through this, and back to our reality, without having to find out."

"I could get behind that," Dean agreed, looking at his watch, "Hey, you wanna get an early breakfast?"

"Early breakfast? It's the middle of the night! You'll be starving again by the time the sun comes up."

"Well, this can be pre-breakfast, then, and I can have another breakfast later."

"What are you now, a hobbit?"

"Shut up, bitch. I'll bet Beagle-Jimi would love some wings."

"Dean, this Jimi is a Beagle – he'd eat a picture of fried wings."

"And it would be good to have some ready for when Jimi Senior shows up."

"So, you're plan is to get wings for breakfast?"

"Pre-breakfast."

"Yeah, yeah, right. You're planning to eat wings for pre-breakfast at zero-dark-hundred?"

"What's wrong with fried wings for breakfast?"

"Oh, God, where do I start?"

"Huh, there's a reason I'm the one that can summon Hellhounds – no hound of The Pit could ever respect a guy who lives on lettuce and shit. It's amazing you haven't grown big floppy ears, and whiskers."

"Jerk."

Dean detoured them to a drive-through, insistent about wings for himself, beagle-Jimi, and the impending arrival of Jimi Senior.

"Look up the Rottweiler breed standard for me," he said around a mouthful of chicken meat, as he slipped a wing to the Beagle who pranced eagerly at his knee, "In case he arrives in his Hellhound form, and I have to, you know, tell him what he needs to look like."

Sam opened his laptop and did as he was bade with as much good grace as he could muster, that is to say none at all, then stomped off to bed in a manner that almost suggested the word 'flounce'.

"Don't mind him, he's a weirdo," Dean assured the dog, handing over another wing as he took the beaded doily from his jacket. "Hey, you're gonna have a buddy for a few days, I think you'll like him – he's another Jimi, and he's a very personable person, if you know what I mean."

He seated himself on the sofa, placed the doily on his head, and, with a happy memory of a big grinning face and a wagging tail rising in his mind, began his recitation of summoning in earnest. He finished the wings with the Jimi who was there (also offering happy doggy grin and much tail wagging), then the two of them burped sonorously, and went back to bed.

**...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... **

"He'll get here when he gets here, Dean," Sam huffed as Dean glanced out the kitchen window again, "It took him half a day to catch up with us last time."

"I know," Dean replied, returning to his breakfast as Jimi dialled the Feed Me Bacon expression up a notch. "I just want to go see him, let him in, as soon as he gets here."

"You'll know when he arrives," Sam chuckled, "He'll be hard to miss." He glanced at his watch. "Come on, we gotta get to work, fill in the forms to go on leave."

"I don't get it," Dean griped, "First they're tellin' us, oh, hey, you gotta take time off, but then it's no, you gotta come to work and fill in a form, first."

"That's how other people's jobs work, Dean," Sam reminded him, "Forms goes with the territory."

"Well, I won't miss that bit," Dean muttered, slipping Jimi an egg-soaked crust.

"Plus, we gotta get rid of your Leaning Tower of Pizza," Sam reminded him.

"That's just mean," Dean complained, "It's a magnificent monument to man's mastery of carbohydrates, and you just wanna destroy it?"

"Suit yourself," Sam replied equably, "But if you get stuck in a workshop entitled 'Respect For The Workplace' and explain to some bean-counter why you should get funding for pest control and carpet cleaning services, don't come bitching to me."

"What if Jimi comes while we're not here?" Dean sounded worried.

"Dean, he's a Hellhound!" Sam said in a somewhat exasperated tone, "He'll find you, wherever you are."

"Yeah, but, what if somebody sees him, a Hunter, and tries to hurt him?" Dean persisted.

"Look, he'll make a beeline for you," Sam reassured his brother, "Wherever you are, he'll go straight there, and then you can tell him to, I dunno, make himself invisible, or make himself look like a Rottie, or whatever."

"Then we can go on 'vacation'," Dean hummed with satisfaction, "Do some ganking, do some fishing, maybe even find some frisky women…"

He was interrupted by a hefty bang of the screen at the back door; Jimi pricked up his ears and headed for that door, woofing excitedly.

"He's here!" yapped Dean, sounding as excited as the beagle, "He needs me to let him in past the wards!"

He charged through the house to where Jimi was already sniffing at the back door, tail wagging furiously. With a welcoming smile on his face, Dean pulled the door open.

There was nothing there.

"Hey, Jimi," he called to the empty yard, "It's okay, fella, you can make yourself visible. Let's see ya!"

The yard remained empty.

Frowning, Dean retrieved the doily, and placed it on his head. "Come on, I know about it this time, I'm the Dominican," he intoned, "And I summoned you, and I want you to see you."

The prevailing state of Hellhoundlessness… prevailed.

"Jimi?" Dean called uncertainly, "It's okay, really, I can let you in past the…"

He jumped as the screen door banged again. Cautiously, he opened it.

The yard was empty.

Then he heard a sound, and looked down.

_Meow._

**...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... **

The Winchesters gazed at the small ginger cat – kitten, really, it clearly wasn't fully grown – that sat gazing back at them serenely, large green eyes blinking slowly.

"So, it wasn't Jimi," Sam began, as Beagle-Jimi nosed curiously at the little animal, which sniffed him back, "It was… that."

"Uh, yeah," managed Dean, eyeing the creature warily.

"You summoned a cat," Sam continued. "You put on a doily, and you summoned a cat."

"I didn't summon him!" Dean protested.

"Her," Sam corrected, reaching down to pick up the little thing, "She's a her."

"Well, I didn't summon her," Dean reiterated.

"Yeah you did," Sam insisted, "You did the summoning, and here she is."

"Sam, I did _not_ summon a_ cat_," Dean said firmly, "She's probably from next door, or something."

"She doesn't have a collar, or a microchip that I can find," Sam rubbed the little cat's scruff, and she began to purr incredibly loudly for such a small body.

"Well, that explains it," Dean stated with authority, "She's just a stray who's smelled bacon, turned up and banged on the door in search of food."

"George," Sam said.

"What?"

"George," Sam repeated. "You said you would summon her, then kiss her and love her and pet her and hug her, and call her George."

"That was just an act, Sam!" his big brother yelped.

"Well, she seems pretty sure she wants to be here," Sam noted, putting the little thing down again. She exchanged a nose sniff with Jimi, then casually turned her back on him with a flick of her tail.

"Jimi likes her," Sam observed.

"Like you said, a Beagle will eat anything," humphed Dean. "So, if we're goin' to work, I'll just put this back outside, an-HEY!"

In three bounds the small cat was up Dean's leg, then up to his shoulder, and rubbing her face on his ear.

"Gaaah!" he yodelled. "Ow! She used claws!"

"She likes you, too," Sam laughed.

"It must be the bacon breath," Dean sighed, then sent himself cross-eyed looking at the cat. He stared into the small round face, seeking any sign of otherworldliness (well, more otherworldliness than the average cat has). There were no red crackling highlights in the green eyes, and no piranha-like fangs extruding. It was a cat.

A cat that appeared to have decided to adopt him.

"We can't have a cat hanging around, Sam," Dean said for the benefit of his brother and his self-appointed feline friend. "I'm not a cat person."

"Maybe not," grinned Sam, "But I think George had decided that she's a Dean cat."

_Meow,_ said George.

* * *

><p>It's true: you can refer to yourself as a cat person, but ultimately, it's cats who decide who the cat people are, not the humans.<p>

It's good to see at least one little plot bunny is being talkative again - send reviews, because they are the Red Bull Drinks Poured Into The Plot Bunnies Of Life!


	15. Chapter 15

_**PSA:**__ It is just a property of the Jimiverse that, whatever reality Dean and Sam find themselves in, their dog – in whatever manifestation he may take – will share his Alpha's disgusting dietary habits, including eating manifestly unsuitable fast food items without endangering his health. It's something to do with the way that Dean can live on take-out, and Sam can live on rabbit food, and they both remain fanserviceable, rather than looking like the Michelin Man and one of those shrill people who stand in malls and berate anybody who does not adhere to the Raw Food Movement. As Nyx Ro has so rightly pointed out, Out Here in Real Life we would never, of course, feed fried wings, or cooked bones of any sort, to a dog, especially a Beagle-sized one, no matter how much they whine and beg and dial the Big Brown Eyes all the way up to eleven. Raw bones are good, though, not just for teeth cleaning purposes, but most dogs find them to be a delicious treat; certainly, my own two take to their weekly chicken carcass dinner like Hellhounds to Damned souls (the post-carcass flatulence is, unfortunately, decidedly unlavenderlike)._

* * *

><p><span><strong>Chapter Fifteen<strong>

A translocation spell was something that neither Winchester had ever performed. Nor had Bobby: such a spell, moving a physical item from one place to another via supernatural means, required not just a lot of occult mojo, but an inherent occult talent. Angels could do it, and powerful demons could do it, but the number of human beings who could do it was very small, and those who could do it could only move small inanimate objects over short distances. On top of that, there was no guarantee that said object would move across the room and remanifest exactly as it started: a book might be translocated from the shelf to your bedside table, but it was just as likely to land there as a pile of confetti.

(To be strictly correct, the number of non-humans who could do it was also very small. Ronnie Shepherd the Old North werewolf was the daughter of a powerful white witch. She had inherited the potential to wield a great occult talent, but had never put in the work to develop it. Her mother had been one of the few people who could pull off a very small, very short translocation. On the one occasion Ronnie attempted to demonstrate the spell to Sam, by moving Dean's pie from one side of the table to the other, Ronnie wore the pie ingredients (including an egg to the face) and the paper bag ended up as a glob of paper pulp mashed into her hair, which served her right for trying to show off and sent Dean into such fits of laughter that he hardly yelled at her at all for messing with his pie.)

Really, it wasn't worth the time, effort and trouble – it was easier to walk across the room to get the book. Or the pie. And usually less embarrassing, too.

And nobody, no matter how arrogant or prideful, would attempt to translocate a living thing. It would end in disaster, for the would-be translocator as well as the translocatee. The laws of matter and biology could be bent to a certain extent, but if broken, the results were inevitably spectacular. Or at least very, very messy. Anybody who wanted to do that would have to wait for the 22nd century and see if the Star Trek thing played out.

So it seemed strange that the small cat could apparently translocate herself from one place to another effortlessly, and through solid metal, too.

That was the only explanation Dean could come up with as to how the damned thing kept following him into the car.

"Get out!" yapped Dean, as George the cat hopped into his lap once more. "What the hell?"

"She seems pretty insistent that she wants to follow you," Sam noted.

"No, really?" growled Dean. George had eventually let him head to the bathroom to brush his teeth and comb his hair unaccompanied, but as soon as he'd picked up his car keys, she climbed his leg to perch on his shoulder once more, loving up his ear and purring loudly. Efforts to dislodge her only made her dig in her claws, and when Dean finally succeeded in making her let go, she had bounded into the car the moment a door opened. Putting her back out didn't work: she was back inside in a flash. Dropping her carefully out the window was ineffective, as Dean couldn't wind the glass back up quickly enough to keep her out. "This aint natural! Cats don't like to ride in cars!"

"Apparently, this one does," Sam observed, as George kneaded briefly, drawing a couple of shrieks from his brother, then settled in Dean's lap.

"Oh, God, how embarrassing," Dean groaned, "I'm gonna have to call Bobby and tell him we're gonna be late, because I'm suffering from a sudden case of cat…"

"Maybe we should just leave her where she is," Sam suggested, "She seems to know what she wants." George looked up at Dean and let out an adorable meowing chirrup. "And it won't be weird turnin' up to work with an animal, we know that."

Dean turned around to where Beagle-Jimi was settled on the back seat. "Why don't you eat her?" he demanded. "You're a dog, she's a cat!" Jimi just thumped his tail a couple of times. "Great," he grumbled, starting the engine, "Other people just get flies through the windows. When Jimi Senior turns up, I'm gonna feed you to the Hellhound."

**...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... **

George insisted on accompanying the Winchesters into the FOOCER building, riding on Dean's shoulder once more.

"What the fuck is this?" he snarked, "You think you're a damned parrot?"

"My advice is just go with the flow, bro," shrugged Sam, "She's not goin' anywhere in a hurry. Not after you summoned her."

" I - did - NOT - summon - this - cat!"

They headed for the offices, Dean keeping an ear out for the approach of Jimi Senior.

"Will you stop that?" demanded Sam. "You look like a spaniel on point, or something."

"He'll be here soon," Dean predicted confidently, "Then we can go gank that bitch. So make with the leave application."

"I am, I am," Sam grumbled, "How long do you wanna take leave for?"

"Two weeks should do it," Dean replied airily, "That'll give us plenty of time, and allow time for Jimi to get here."

"Okay… oh."

"Oh?" echoed Dean, "Oh? Oh? What's 'Oh'?"

"It says here we gotta notify Personnel where we'll be while we're on leave," Sam told him, "In case they need to get in touch with us. I can't put 'Haring Around The Country Looking To Gank The Werewolf That Tried To Molest Dean', Bobby wants you to take time off."

"Well, make something up!" snapped Dean.

"Like what?" demanded Sam.

"I don't know!" Dean shot back, "Something that people do on vacation! Somewhere with booze, and frisky women…"

"We're supposed to be planning some time off for you to re-equilibrate," Sam pointed out, "We don't want to raise eyebrows here, Dean, we want to stay under the radar, give Bobby the impression that we are getting with the program." He tapped at the computer. "Okay, I'm looking for family vacations… well, the obvious one is Disneyland."

"Are you nuts?" yipped Dean. "Screaming kids, queues, grown men who should know better doin' furries cosplay, and there's somethin' creepy about a giant mouse goin' around huggin' people, and the only hot chicks are dressed as Disney characters and there strictly no touchin' allowed if you're over six years old…"

"Okay, okay," Sam tapped at the keys, "Honolulu has a lot of recreational things to do, and we've never been to Hawaii before."

"We've never been to Hawaii before," Dean told him through clenched teeth, "Because I aint gettin' on a plane unless my life depends on it, and even then I'm gonna take my time thinkin' it over."

"Right, no Hawaii," Sam grumbled. "Ah, now, Yellowstone Park is spectacular…"

"I've been there," Dean interrupted tersely. "It smells of ass."

"What?" Sam glared at his brother.

"It smells of ass," Dean repeated. "I ganked a wendigo there once; it smells of ass."

"The geothermal features probably do vent quite a bit of sulphur," Sam conceded, "Which is pretty normal for any volcanic activity, but…"

"Look, it's water you can't swim in with frisky women, goin' bloop, mud you can't wrestle in with frisky women, goin' bloop, hot springs you can't lounge in with frisky women, goin' bloop, and forests that aint safe to go chasin' frisky women. While it all smells of ass."

"Fine, fine," Sam muttered, "Some of the most spectacular scenery in the country, but not suitable because it goes bloop. And smells of ass. I guess Yosemite's out of the question, then…"

"I got chased by a bear," Dean mumbled resentfully.

"Look, we don't actually have to go there for two weeks," Sam reminded him, "All we have to do is look like we're making arrangements to go and have some relaxing, wholesome down time."

"Las Vegas," Dean offered promptly. "I could play poker, hustle pool, and meet frisky women. Without anythin' goin' bloop and smelling of ass."

Sam rolled his eyes. "Dean, you do those three things wherever we go. If we went to another planet, you'd find a pool hall, a poker game, and frisky women."

"It worked for James T. Kirk," Dean waggled his eyebrows.

"It doesn't sound particularly relaxing," Sam opined.

"It is for me," sniffed Dean, "If you don't like it, you could, I dunno, go out and, and, and empathise with the desert rocks or something, talk to a coyote, commune with a cactus, do that freaky New Age shit and stuff."

"Why the hell would I want to commune with a cactus," Sam said sourly, "When I got a total prick to talk to right here?"

There was a knock at the door, and they both turned.

"Hello, boys. Am I interrupting?"

The Winchesters stared. It was the same body, the same face, even the same impeccably tailored suit, but the smile was sincere and warm, and radiated compassion in the megawatt range.

"Oh, uh, hi, Cr- Fergus," stuttered Sam.

"Christo," spat Dean.

"Bless you," replied Fergus mildly, bending down as Beagle-Jimi chose that moment to trot across the room, wagging his tail in greeting. "You know, there are days when I think that the dogs are the only ones in this place who are ever glad to see me," he sighed with amusement, scratching the dog's ears.

"It's Crowley, Jim, but not as we know him," muttered Dean under his breath.

Sam elbowed him. "So, uh, what can we do for you… Fergus?" he asked brightly.

Fergus the counsellor straightened up. "I won't insult you by saying I was just passing by," he eyed Dean, "Bobby told me about your… visit to his place last night."

"Oh, that," Dean made himself smile, and flapped a hand dismissively.

"Yes, that," confirmed Fergus, "And he asked me to come and talk to you about it. He's worried about you. Look, why don't we head to your office, and…"

"Anything you wanna say, you can say in front of Sam," Dean interrupted.

Fergus eyed Dean levelly. "Dean, we have talked about you two and your co-dependence dynamic before," he said in a mildly chiding tone, "And I know that your brother was absolutely fundamental to you dealing with the trauma you suffered last year, but the he-man act in front of your baby brother is ultimately not healthy…"

"I'm not traumatised!" yapped Dean, "I'm perfectly functional! Hunters aint normal people, Cr- Fergus, you should know that by now."

Fergus gave Dean the look of a shepherd calmly trying to persuade the most stubborn and recalcitrant sheep of the flock to head back towards the safety of the fold.

"You're not the first Hunter to be really rattled by something in the job," he said quiety. "This is an occupation where awful things can happen, to good people, people who don't deserve it. I've seen what happens when people don't deal with it, Dean. You bottle it up, and when it does burst out, the blast radius gets bigger the longer you leave it to fester." He fixed Dean with a gaze that was scarily reminiscent of a compassionate version of Castiel's Eye Sex Stare Of Doom. "I don't think you're completely okay, Dean. You can fill that hole with alcohol, and women, and gambling, but it's not a healthy fix. But here's the thing: it's all right not to be okay. You don't have to be strong for anybody, not FOOCER, not Bobby, not your brother – you have to look after yourself…"

Dean's mouth opened and shut a couple of times. "Yeah, well, we're… we're doin' something about that," he went on firmly. "Bobby says it would be good for me to have some time off, so we're gonna take a vacation!"

Fergus's left eyebrow shot up. "You're going to take some time off?" He looked at Sam. "I've only been trying to convince him to take some time off for the last year, are you after my job?"

"Well, uh, after last night, we discussed it," Sam said, oozing sincerity, "And given that he's been kind of, uh, stressed, since, you know, he agreed that it would be a good idea, and we really should take a vacation."

"Yeah!" Dean chirped, "We're goin to, uh, we're goin' to… Disneyland!"

Fergus's right eyebrow shot up.

"I always wanted to go when I was a kid," Dean said wistfully, "But we never had the money, or the chance, and I wanted to see the Magic Mountain, and I wanted to see Snow White, and I wanted to go on the monorail, and see Sleeping Beauty's castle, and, and," he turned soulful eyes on Fergus, "I wanted to hug Mickey and tell him how much I loved his cartoons, but I never had the chance to…" he dropped his eyes. "You probably think I'm bein' stupid," he mumbled in embarrassment.

Fergus smiled. "Dean, I think that's a great idea," he told them, "That's exactly the sort of self-nurturing me-time you should be doing. Don't worry about what anybody else might think - you're doing something for you, and I think it will do you the world of good."

Dean looked up, a beaming smile on his face. "Thanks, Fergus," he said, "Hey, I'll bring you back some Mouseketeer ears!"

Fergus laughed, and shook his head. "Well, they might cover my thin spot," he said philosophically. "And remember, my door is always open."

Dean kept grinning until Fergus left the office, then his face resumed its scowl as Sam grinned.

"So, I'll just check the adult admission prices, shall I, maybe look at accommodation between here and California…"

"Shut up," growled Dean, "And find out how much as set of Mouseketeer ears costs."

"You're really gonna buy him a present?" chortled Sam.

"Oh yeah," rumbled Dean. George leaped onto the desk then into his lap, and he began to stroke her like a movie villain plotting something dastardly. "And by the time I shove 'em where I intend to, he'll think they came from Yellowstone Park."

* * *

><p>Dean really is not in favour of getting with the program. Tearing it up, throwing it to the ground then jumping up and down on the pieces, maybe, but getting with it, not so much...<p>

Send reviews, because they are the Much Needed Time Off When You Are Assailed By The Unpleasantly Solid Parsnip Of Mundane Reality In Real Life!


	16. Chapter 16

**Chapter Sixteen**

"It aint right," Dean muttered to himself, "Not in this reality, not in any reality. Crowley as a damned counsellor? Now I really do need a damned vacation, just to get over the shock." He eyed the Nerf gun in the corner of his office. "I think I should have that by my desk from now on, just in case he comes back."

"I wouldn't do that," Sam cautioned, scanning the screen, "Not after last time."

"Whaddya mean, last time?" Dean demanded.

"The email is still here," Sam told him, "You got a formal caution for workplace bullying of a colleague."

"For shooting the King of Hell with Nerf?" Dean blinked in disbelief.

"He's not the King of Hell here, Dean," Sam reminded him with an eye-roll.

"He'll always be Crowley to me," Dean griped, "So, when do we leave?"

"Not until we've submitted the forms," Sam told him, "You'll have to fill one in, too."

Dean made a face. "Fill in forms? I'm a Hunter! Since when do Hunters fill in forms?"

"Since we hold down actual paid employment," Sam shrugged.

With a flouncing pout, Dean plonked himself down in front of the screen. "What the… this thing is four pages long! How can it take four pages to say 'I'm goin' on vacation'?"

"You'd have to ask the paper-pushers," Sam suggested. "Go on, the sooner you start, the sooner we can submit it."

"Stupid damned forms," Dean seethed, scanning the document and resisting the urge to type in puerile entries to the various data fields. "Name: Dean Winchester. Department: FOOCER. Number… Jesus, why don't they just barcode us, or something…"

"Just fill in the form, Dean," sighed Sam with a long-suffering _Bitchface_ #7™ (You Can Be Impossibly Unreasonable Dean, You Know That?).

"Date of birth… don't they have this stuff on file?... Sex: Oh, yeah, all the time…"

"Dean!" Sam's Bitchface™ morphed into a #8 (You Are Now Officially Talking Complete Shit, Dean.) "Look, it's just a pro forma government file, that has to work across all Public Service type departments, and be able to get all the info they need from anybody who needs to fill in a form to go on leave, from a part-time janitor somewhere to a senior health service official."

"Bigwigs have to fill in these things?" Dean queried.

"If they wanna go on vacation, yeah," confirmed Sam.

"So, if I was, say, Captain of a warship, I'd have to fill one of these in?"

"Well, Defense probably have their own form, but yeah, something very similar."

"And if I was a DOI executive, I'd have to fill it in?"

"Yeah, you would."

"What if I was a Fed?"

"Dean, technically, in this reality, we are Feds…"

"What if I was CIA?"

"Yeah, you wanna go on leave, you gotta fill in the form…"

"What if I was a sniper?"

"What?"

"You know, a sniper. A guy who snipes. With a sniper rifle."

"Yeah, Defense personnel, they gotta fill in forms…"

"What if I was Black Ops?"

"What?"

"You know, hush-hush, we're not actually here, sneakin' around takin' out bad guys? You can't be undercover, and then go all, hey, I want some time off, hold on, I just gotta fill in a form, whoops, there goes my cover."

"Dean…"

"Or if you were, like, a spy, and you were undercover, and you were infiltratin' a terrorist group, and they said, come on, let's all go to the Middle East, you couldn't say, yeah, sounds like fun, let me just get my sunscreen and fill in this form."

"Dean…"

"Do the people in the White House fill these in?"

"Dean…"

"Does the Vice-President fill one in? Or does he just, you know, leave a Post-It note on the desk in the Oval Office? Why can't I just leave a Post-It note?"

"Dean…"

"Hey, what about the Prez? Who does he submit his form to?"

"Dean…"

"He probably has to check with the First Lady, because I'm betting she's the one who'd do all the packing, and be all like, don't you dare take that shirt, I hate that shirt, if you wear that shirt in public I won't sign off on your form…"

"DEAN!" Sam snapped, "Just… just fill in the form, okay? You don't have to like it, just do it."

"I'm filling, I'm filling," Dean grumbled, "I just don't see what paperwork has to do with Huntin'." He finished filling in the required fields, and hit SUBMIT. "Okay, so, I figure we wheedle some of those silver rounds from Kevin – they're not real good, but they're probably the best that we'll get, and they'll work well enough close up, then we can hit the road this afternoon…"

"We can't go until the submissions are approved," Sam interrupted him.

"What?" Dean yapped. "I filled in their stupid form, tellin' 'em I wanna go on vacation! I'm gettin' messages tellin' me I have to go on vacation! And now I gotta wait?"

Sam pinched the bridge of his nose, observing once more that Dean was about graceful about delayed gratification as the average three year old sitting in front of a bowl of marshmallows being told to leave them alone for sixty seconds. "Look, it's just how the system works. While we're here, in this reality, we gotta work within the system."

"So what do I do until some brain-dead desk-jockey approves my damned form?" demanded Dean.

"The brain-dead desk-jockey will approve it as soon as it gets through the system, idjit," growled a voice behind them. They spun to see Bobby glaring at them. "And I'll thank you to keep a civil tongue in your head, boy, if'n you don't wanna end up right back in Equity and Diversity refresher training."

"Sorry, Bobby," Dean said, a picture of contrition, "I'm just, you know, now we're goin', I'm just keen to go."

Bobby's face softened. "I understand, son," he said, "And I'm just glad you've finally seen that you need this. So, goin' anywhere in particular?"

"Disneyland," Sam answered promptly, "Dean's always wanted to go, but we never had the chance when we were kids."

Dean kicked Sam under the desk as Bobby chuckled. "Good for you," the old man rumbled, "Bring me some Mouseketeer ears – I never got to go either. However," his face became serious, "Before you do go, there is the matter of your annual awareness updates."

"Uh, updates?" queried Dean nervously.

"Don't play the dumb blonde with me," Bobby chided with amusement, "They aint like mosquito bites – they don't go away if you ignore 'em. The email alerts just get more strident." He turned to Sam. "Now, your brother, he always gets his done right on time – perhaps in future, if you could just remind Dean when they're due…"

"Oh, I do," Sam nodded earnestly, "But, well, you know what he's like with anything administrative."

Dean shot him a glare that was perilously close to a Bitchface™.

"Well, you're supposed to have 'em up to date before leave can be granted," Bobby frowned, "But seein' as you're so keen to head off, I'm sure that I can trust you to take care of that in the next day or two, can't I?" He gave Dean a meaningful look.

"Uh, yeah, sure," Dean smiled weakly. "My annual awareness updates. Gotta update my annual awareness. Yessirree, gotta make sure I'm aware of those annuals. Updatedly."

"I know for a fact you aint done your Safety In The Workplace, or Firearms Safety for nearly twenty-four months," Bobby informed him, "And as for Safe Handling Of Hazardous Chemicals, Charlie can't find any record of you having completed it at all. And Documentation and Record Maintenance, well, given that The Spreadsheet Incident is still alarmingly fresh in people's minds, the sooner you go through the motions with that one the better."

"Yeah, sure," Dean sighed. "I'll get right on it."

"See that you do," instructed Bobby, leaning down to scritch George under the chin as the little cat chirped a purring meow at him. "Who's this then?"

"That's, uh, that's George," Dean admitted reluctantly, "She, uh, just turned up. This morning."

"After Dean summoned her, last night, at your place," Sam added helpfully.

"I did NOT summon a damned cat!" yapped Dean irritably, "She's just a stray, who's attached herself to me, and won't go away. I can't even keep her out of the car!"

"Heh heh, tried to summon a Hellhound, and got this," Bobby chuckled. "But you didn't summon her. Nobody summons a cat; cats decide when and where to turn up."

Dean pulled a face at Sam.

"So, is there any such thing as a, uh, Hellcat?" asked Sam.

"Not that I ever heard tell of," Bobby replied, "Although a lot of occult lore has it that cats do have at least two paws in Hell from birth – there's a reason that witches often have them for familiars." He peered at Dean. "You thinking of takin' an interest in The Craft, Dean? You never showed any interest, or, I'm sorry to say, aptitude before."

"No!" yelped Dean, "She just showed up! I don't want a damned familiar!"

"Wouldn't be the only person in the building," Bobby shrugged equably, "No stranger than Geoffrey the Green Iguana, or Amelia the crow, or Bubbles the tarantula..."

"Bubbles?" gawped Sam. "Somebody has a tarantula, named Bubbles, as a familiar? How the hell does that work?"

"Well, she started out as Henry," Bobby replied, "But as she grew up, it became pretty clear that she was a she, and she didn't look at all like a Henrietta, she definitely looked more like a, well, like a Bubbles."

"Not like a… how the hell do you Hunt with a tarantula?" demanded Dean, "Get some spider whisperer to teach 'em to bite on command?"

"Well, Mexican redknees aren't very venomous," Bobby conceded, "But you'd be amazed at how many fuglies will stop whatever they're doin' and start screamin' when she lands on 'em – dunk her in holy water, and she can stop a demon in its tracks. Anyway, George here can keep you company while you do your awareness updates. Most of 'em you can do online." He regarded the small cat thoughtfully as she looked up at him, their expressions remarkably similar. "Do you really think she looks like a George?"

"Well, Bubbles was taken," Dean snarked, "And she doesn't have enough legs to be a Henrietta."

Bobby left with another 'Do Your Homework' frown at Dean, who drooped. "Bubbles the tarantula. Geoffrey the iguana. It's true, you know, demons I get, but people are just crazy. So," he sighed heavily, "What the hell are these annuals that I have to be aware of in an updated fashion?"

"According to this," Sam tapped at the keyboard, "It's a series of self-paced learning online modules you have to complete every year, to stay, uh, aware of your obligations as an employee in a federal workplace. Here." A list of links appeared on the screen. "You watch the videos, and the PowerPoints, you do the quizzes."

Dean looked at the list. "This will take forever!" he complained.

"Well, you can get on with that while I do a bit of research, see if I can find anything that might help us get a fix on Ronnie in this reality."

With all the martyred ennui of a six year old being told that he can't go back out to play ball until he's helped clear the table, Dean scanned through the training he was expected to complete. "Hey, Fraud and Ethics. That one should be fun…" he read the introduction. "What the… this is all about how to submit my work-related expenses claims!"

"I think the idea is probably to remind you to avoid fraud, and be ethical," Sam suggested, starting up the laptop.

"But being a good Hunter means bein' able to bend fraud over and make it your bitch!" Dean complained. "As for ethics, huh, when angels stop behaving like total dicks, and more like stained glass windows, I'lll sign up for ethics…"

"Just do it, Dean," instructed Sam.

"I hate this reality," muttered Dean mutinously, "I hate it, and I want to get out of it as soon as possible."

Sam looked at him. "I thought you said it wasn't so bad," he mused.

"Well it is!" Dean snapped.

"I thought you liked the house, the money, the motorcycle, the spa bath, the regular purchase of decent quality food," Sam pressed.

"I did," Dean humphed, "Right up until I had to be made annually aware of how to be ethically fraudulent. Or fraudulently ethical. In an updated fashion, natch."

"You're getting paid to do this," Sam reminded him.

"Yeah, well, hookers get paid to get screwed too," Dean pouted, "And I aint no hooker. Hunters don't fill in forms, and they don't get their panties in a twist over keepin' their receipts – they do what they gotta do to get the job done. Safety In The Workplace? If Hunters worried about safety, they'd never leave the damned office! Our job is all about kicking our safety in the nuts, so other people can keep theirs! This is wrong, Sam, this is weird, and wrong – and Jimi Senior still hasn't showed up, and that's all kinds of wrong, too, so just find that vicious bitch so we can go gank her, and get the hell out of Stepford, and back to proper reality."

"I'm on it," Sam humphed, as Dean, still muttering dire imprecations unto whoever decided that making adults sit through courses entitled things like 'Respect In The Workplace' and 'Mind Your Business – Keeping Tax Records' was something that could be done without any chance of provoking homicide.

He still had no idea what The Spreadsheet Incident was, but by the time he was through 'Work Time Expenditure Logs', he was ready to perpetrate another one.

As it turned out, it was just as well that the short assignment he had to write as part of the Safety In The Workplace module wasn't actually marked until a week later: He was required to write a short essay entitled 'Avoiding Workplace Injuries', and it consisted of a single sentence, written in bold and underlined several times:

_DON'T TRY TO TELL ME HOW TO DO MY FUCKING JOB._

* * *

><p>As you can probably tell, I have to fill in a lot of paperwork in my job, and most of it strikes me as utterly useless. I'm not bitter, I'm not bitter, I'm not bitter…<p>

Send reviews, because they are The Warm Cheerful Light As You Hurl Meaningless Paperwork Onto The Bonfire Of Life!


	17. Chapter 17

… so I've got a lab full of chemicals, some of them are very hazardous indeed, and the lab has to carry an SDS (Safety Data Sheet) for each one, with all the info about the hazards and what to do in case of spillage or poisoning, but that's not ENOUGH, it has to be in the EXACT FORMAT specified by the Powers That Be, so the WHS drone goes 'This document isn't compliant' and I say 'But all the info is there' and she says 'But the DOCUMENT isn't COMPLIANT' and I say 'What, because these two sections are in the reverse order?' and she says 'Exactly!' and I say 'But the company won't supply one in the format you want' and she says 'The supplier has to' and I say 'I know that, it's mandated under the WHS Act' and she says 'Well, explain it to them' and I say 'It's not my job to be explaining WHS law to major chemical suppliers! Anyway, I've tried, and because the regulatory body overseeing compliance is a toothless tiger, they don't care', so she says 'Well you need a compliant document' and I say 'Look, I'm qualified to write these documents myself, why don't I write one in the format you want?' and she says, 'No, the SUPPLIER has to PROVIDE a COMPLIANT DOCUMENT' and I say 'But they say they don't have one!' and she says 'Well, you'll have to dispose of that chemical' and I say 'But I need that for my work, that's why I bought it in the first place!' and she says 'Well you can't keep it, you don't have a COMPLIANT DOCUMENT, dispose of it and buy it from a supplier who will give you a COMPLIANT DOCUMENT' and I say 'But it's really expensive! That's not very fiscally responsible' and she says 'I'm not concerned with fiscal responsibility, I'm concerned with making sure you hold COMPLIANT DOCUMENTS' and I say 'Fine, fine, I'll just ignore the Ethics and Fraud briefing altogether and get rid of it' and she says 'Good. Don't forget to use the official approved disposal procedure' and I say 'That keeps changing – where can I find the most recent protocol?' and she says 'It's on the WHS web page' and I say 'Fine, I'll check it out, and fill in the form' and she says 'Don't forget, to dispose of a hazardous chemical, along with your disposal manifest you'll have to submit a COMPLIANT SDS DOCUMENT FROM THE SUPPLIER' and I say 'Please go away before I do something that the Employee Code Of Practice would not condone, like make an I statement with extreme prejudice' then I get that chemical and hide it in a cupboard and tell her it's gone because that's what everybody else is doing and I feel like a total bozo for having put so much effort into trying to get it right to start with when I should've known better because wretched experience should have taught me by now that once a paper-pusher gets hold of a process, it will never work again.

See, I'm not bitter, I'm not bitter, I'm not bitter…

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter Seventeen<strong>

By the end of the day, Dean had been informed, updated, briefed and educated in a thoroughly annual fashion, to the point where he was pretty sure his head was going to explode, and if it did, he wasn't sure whether he would have to fill in the form for an incident report, a medical alert or a chemical spill.

"One of uuuuuus," he droned, letting his head fall onto the keyboard, "One of uuuuuus, one of uuuuuus…"

"What the hell?" said Sam, coming into Dean's office with his own laptop.

"One of uuuuus," moaned Dean, "I am the company's man, I am an obedient employee, I know my KPIs from my KERs, I know my SDSs from my SOPs, I know my I statements from my tax statements - the company is life, the company is love, the company is all, there is no Dean, there is only FOOCER…"

"Knock it off, you drama queen," snapped Sam, leaning down to pat Jimi who'd left off his snoozing and come over to greet him. "You've had worse, spending days goin' through back issues of newspapers or stacks of occult books."

"Belittling a colleague verbally or in writing, to their face or behind their back, is contrary to the Values of this organisation," Dean informed him. "I find your behaviour unacceptable."

"I'm not belittling you if I'm just pointing out the obvious," replied Sam.

"A repeated pattern of abusive behaviour, after the employee concerned has been informed that the colleague in question finds the behaviour offensive or unacceptable, constitutes harassment," Dean went on. "Stop harrassin' me, or so help me, I'll fill in a form."

Sam gave him a sideways look. "If you're so informed and suddenly so keen about what constitutes unacceptable behaviour and harassment, does this mean that from now on I won't have to listen to any more of your Chicks I Have Banged stories?"

"Ah, well now, that's completely different," Dean sat up, "Because that's not on work time, and that's not to harass you, it's for educational purposes."

"What happened to the colleague in question finding the behaviour offensive?" demanded Sam.

"You aint my colleague, you're my brother," Dean grinned, the very idea of annoying Sam with stories of his sexcapades dispelling the funk of corporate compliance. "It's my duty."

"Right, right," muttered Sam, "I should've known."

"So, you got anything on Lady Cujo?" Dean asked.

"Not definitive," Sam told him ruefully. "But that's her pattern; when she doesn't want to be found, she's good at staying off the radar."

"Well, we really shouldn't go without Jimi Senior anyway," sighed Dean. "And once he's here, he can track her for us." He looked at his watch. "Where is he, anyway? It's been well past twelve hours, he shoulda found us by now." George the cat got up from where she had been snoozing on the desk and walked across the keyboard, chirruping urgently. "Yeah, I'm with George," agreed Dean, "It's time to eat."

They headed out to the Impala, George clinging to Dean's shoulder, and headed back to Casa Winchester. Late that evening, Jimi Senior still hadn't turned up.

"Right, that's it," announced Dean, pulling back the rug in the living room.

"What are you doing?" asked Sam.

"Complaining to customer service," Dean answered grimly, "I'm gonna summon the Monarch of Hell, and demand to know where my Hellhound is."

"Dean, we don't know who that is!" Sam objected as Dean knelt down and began to mark the floor, whilst trying to fend of the 'assistance' of beagle-Jimi.

"I don't care who it is," growled Dean, "The trap will hold 'em, I get the J-Man, we exorcise 'em, job done. Simple."

"What if it's Lucifer still in charge Down There?" Sam suggested.

"He aint exactly a demon," Dean pointed out. "This can only summon a demon, not a fallen angel. So unless you wanna dance around singing about how much you'd like to be a onesie for the Prince of Darkness, he's not gonna show."

"We'll end up summoning a powerful demon," Sam cautioned, "It may not be nice and 'simple'."

"Course it's simple," Dean countered, "In this reality, we got holy water, we got the demon-killing knives, and the exorcism rite works exactly the same – I checked. And we need Jimi Senior to take down Gmork-girl."

"For you, 'wait' is how heavy something is, isn't it?" Sam complained sourly, nevertheless pulling the rug completely out of the way, "And 'patience' are the people in a hospital, and 'self-control' is a robot that works without a remote, and 'restraint' is…"

"I can tell you what that means to me," Dean's eyebrows waggled lewdly. "Mistress Amanda in Nevada, she..."

"Jerk." He paused. "'Gmork-girl'? You read 'The NeverEnding Story'?"

"I saw the film," Dean shrugged. "The Empress was hot."

"The Empress was… you would've been, what, maybe five or six years old when that film was released!"

"I was ten when I saw it," Dean corrected him, "And the actress was thirteen."

"Oh, God, Dean, that's…"

"Older women can be hot too, you know."

"Shut up, Jerk," griped Sam, "Or I'll fill out a form."

They pulled together the required ingredients for the summoning, and began the rite. Jimi retreated to the sofa and whined, ears drooping, whilst George glowered at the trap drawn on the floor, ears flat and hackles bristling, and hissed her displeasure.

"George is not happy about this," noted Sam.

"Well, Bobby says that cats have at least two paws in Hell," Dean reminded his brother. "Maybe if we're lucky, she'll jump in and go home while the door's open."

Dean mixed the ingredients, then Sam began the recitation.

A sudden breeze sprang up in the living room, bringing a hint of heat and a whiff of sulphur. A sickly red light began to glow in the middle of the intricate design marked on the floor.

George let out a long growl.

A column of wailing black vapour suddenly burst from the floor and swirled, apparently realising it was trapped, and then it coalesced into a form, a humanoid form, and then it took a human form.

It was wearing a skin-tight dress and a pair of stiletto boots so high that, had the wearer been an actual human woman, would probably have required the user to be wearing an oxygen mask to avoid passing out.

The blood-red lips twisted into a cruel smile, and one long, perfectly manicured crimson nail tapped at the chin as she looked them slowly up and down, not just undressing them with her eyes but mentally ripping, tearing and shredding their clothing while she did it.

"Well, well," purred a voice full of malevolent invitation, "Hello there."

Sam stared, his mouth dropping open. "Jesus H. fucking K-Reist!" he breathed.

The demon let out a rippling laugh. "Oh, not exactly, I'm a lot more fun than Him. In fact," she smiled, "If you let me out of this trap, Hunter boy, I'll show you exactly how much fun I can be."

"You're…" Sam wheezed, shock taking away control of his speech, "You… you…"

"I am Despairina," the demon supplied, "Queen of Hell. You may bow before me, if you like." She looked him up and down again. "Yessssss, I know I would like that…"

Dean recovered first, and spoke unto the foul Creature Of The Pit, saying unto her:

_"Becky, what the fuck are you doing?"_

* * *

><p>Oh dear. Welcome to Sam's personal Hell. Little Monty-Fred the plot bunny is one strange individual.<p>

It does cheer me somewhat to find out that I'm not alone in being required to waste work time on useless administrivial embuggerance. The only thing I have to look forward to is The Purge. We have a colleague doing it now: he's retiring very shortly, and is gleefully feeding piles of crap into the shredder. He can't keep the grin off his face. The miserable bastard.

AND I've been told that slapping WHS drones is not allowed. Something about Safety In The Workplace, apparently.

Send reviews, because the are The Cheerful Shredding Of Useless Documents/Items/People Annoying The Crap Out Of You In The Workplace Of Life!


	18. Chapter 18

…so then the WHS type starts banging on about labelling of chemicals in the laboratory, which I get, yeah, everything in a lab should be labelled, especially if it's hazardous, but frankly if you make it through a science degree and don't know that alcohols are flammable and acids are corrosive then you should be frog-marched back to your alma mater and made to hand back your degree, but apparently they're determined to treat everybody like three year olds, so I say, 'Okay, tell me what's wrong with the label on this chemical', and she says 'It doesn't have the STREET ADDRESS of the supplier on it' and I say 'No, it doesn't, so what' and she says 'It has to have the STREET ADDRESS of the company or the label is NOT COMPLIANT' and I say 'But it's got all the info necessary, look, what it is, what the hazards are, the codes for the hazards, the phone number for the supplier, the reference to the SDS, what else does it need' and she says 'It NEEDS the STREET ADDRESS for the SUPPLIER' and I say 'Why the hell does it need that, if I have a spill or somebody is exposed, what am I going to do, ignore the emergency phone number, ignore the SDS, and sit down and write a letter to them, Dear Sir, I have just spilled one of your products on a colleague and cannot help but notice that it appears to be dissolving him, please write to me advising of appropriate first aid and clean-up procedures, hope you are well, the weather here continues warm, etc.' and she says 'I'm not interested in your first aid or clean-up procedures, I'm interested in DOCUMENT COMPLIANCE' and I say 'Didn't I complain about this complete lack of relevance before after the hoo-hah over the SDSs' and she says 'The relevance isn't the issue here, the issue is that your LABELS must be COMPLIANT' and I say 'Please go away before something in here spills on you and I have to fill in a form'…

I really am not bitter, nope nope nope nope nope nope nope…

* * *

><p><span><strong>Chapter Eighteen<strong>

Sam was a Hunter. He has seen some horrific things. He had experienced some horrific things. But his face now wore the expression of a man dangling off a cliff over the edge of the Inferno by his jockstrap – he looked into the devil's trap, and beheld his own personal Hell.

"Meeeeeeep," he went.

The expression on the face of the Queen of Hell went from smugly arrogant (or possibly arrogantly smug) to disbelief, to horror, to sulky displeasure.

"Becky," Dean spluttered again in bewilderment, "It's you. It is, isn't it? It's definitely you. Becky Rosen. The writer of the most totally awful stories the world has ever known. I'm not the least bit surprised you ended up in Hell, considering that crap definitely qualified as crime against humanity."

"Meeeeeeep," went Sam.

Her Infernal Majesty's face finally settled on Little-Girl-Who-Tried-To-Hide-Her-My-Little-Pony-From-Her-Brother-But-Returned-To-Find-That-Rainbow-Dash-Is-Now-Rocking-A-Mohawk-And-Pinkie-Pie-Is-Performing-Upon-Fluttershy-An-Act-That-Would-Get-Humans-Arrested-If-They-Did-It-In-Public.

"Nobody knows that!" she hissed angrily, "Nobody knows who I was! How the fuck do you know that?"

Dean made a noise of disbelief. "I'd recognise the way you look at Sam anywhere," he scoffed. "You look like a starving wolf watching a baby moose."

"Meeeeeeep," went Sam.

Becky gave Dean a long, calculating look. "That hasn't been me for a long time, Hunter-boy. I am the Queen of Hell, The Mistress of Perdition, The Lady of The Pit…"

"Oh, I always knew there was somethin' not right about you, you malevolent midget," Dean broke in, cocking his head to look at her. His curiosity got the better of him. "How did you become Queen of Hell?"

Her Diabolical Majesty's eyes slid sideways. "The other demons voted for me," she said.

"Crap," Dean shot back, "You don't vote for ruler of Hell!

"All right, then, it was by walking over the shredded, bleeding remains of anybody who crossed me," she replied defensively.

Dean made a noise of disbelief. "No," he clarified, "The Becky Rosen I knew was just an air-headed fangirl with creepy-ass stalker tendencies. Granted, I think you should've gone to Hell for those stories you wrote, that 'slash' stuff, that was just weird, and creepy, and freaky, and weird, but seriously, walkin' over bleeding bodies? What did you do, whack 'em over the head with your laptop, you demonic dwarf?"

Becky glared at him, bottom lip sticking out like a Belieber at a Slayer gig.

Dean gave her a smug grin. "Come on, I'm a Hunter," he told her, "It's my job to know stuff about evil shit. You are clearly evil shit. Therefore, it's my job to know about you, Becky 'The Clavicle Caresser' Rosen. And if you answer the question, I might just have my curiosity satisfied to the point where I can't be assed tellin' anybody else who you really are."

"Meeeeeeep," went Sam.

Queen Becky glared at him resentfully. "He found out," she said sullenly, "I made a deal to get a potion to make him fall in love with me, and marry me…"

"What?" asked Dean, "Who?"

"Eric," she sighed, "My Eric, the sexiest vampire in the entire country… oh, people just think he's a character in a TV series, but I knew better. People say he's still a thug, a viking at heart, but I knew that all he needed was the love of a good woman…"

"Well, you hardly count as a 'good woman' if you'd go slippin' him an occult roofie," Dean pointed out. "So, he found out and got mad, and killed you, huh?"

"No," Becky sighed wistfully, "He found my stories, and got mad and killed me."

"Not a fan, huh?" asked Dean.

"I don't know why he was so upset!" Becky burst out, "But when he found my website, 'More Than Suckers', and read the latest one I'd written about him and Bill, he's another vampire…" She suddenly looked enthusiastic. "Hey, if you know about me, have you ever read any of my stuff?"

"Meeeeeeep," went Sam.

"Enough to know that he was totally justified," Dean muttered. "Let me guess, once you were in Hell, you subdued the place by reading your stories to everybody until they agreed to let you be Queen if you'd just shut up?"

"I had lots of readers!" protested Her Majesty, "And I still do!"

Dean groaned. "Oh, no, you've been Damned and gone to Hell, and become a demon, and you're still writing that crap? Didn't you learn anything?"

"It can't be all torturing and scheming and back-stabbing and double-crossing," complained Becky, "I need me-time as well. Plus, the knowledge that I'm still writing my stories keeps the Hierarchy in line."

"Proof positive that Tumblr is satanic," Dean muttered, "But I didn't summon you here to talk about your lousy writing. You got something I want."

Becky gave him a bright smile. "Oh, you want to make a deal!" she chirped, "I know how to do that!" Hey eyes were drawn to Sam. "Hey, can I kiss him to seal it?"

"Meeeeeeep," went Sam.

"Oh, I aint gonna make a deal," Dean returned her smile with one of his own, the one that said I Will Buttfuck Your Soul, "I'm here – or, more accurately, you're here – for my Hellhound."

Becky stared at him. "Your…_ your_ Hellhound?" She looked utterly baffled.

"Oh yeah." Dean stared right back. "I am The Righteous Man, and next in line as Lord of the Hounds, the Dominican, Handler of the Infernal Pack – I am Dean Winchester."

Becky kept staring. "Who?" she asked.

"The guy who's summoning the Alpha of the Hellhounds!" Dean snapped, taking the glass-beaded doily out of his pocket and placing it on his head.

She gawped at him. "Who the fuck do you think you are, Legolas? Is this some sort of weird cosplay thing?"

"Don't you dare call me weird, you freak!" yapped Dean.

Becky glared at him. "You can't summon a Hellhound," she snapped, "Hey, I can't control the damned things! They get into my office, and they leave Damned guts all over the carpet, and they chew up my print-outs, in between proof-reading my stories, Orgle is forever cleaning the floors…"

"Well I'm the Dominican, bitch, and I summon Belisarius, Alpha of the Infernal Pack. I summon him to my pack, to my Hunt, to my prey. Right now. Come on, Jimi," he called, "Shag ass, we got work to do, J-Man…"

Becky's face showed angry disbelief. "What the fuck is this?" she demanded in pique, apparently of the universe at large. "_You _want Belisarius? Is there something in the water?"

"Where is he?" yelled Dean, "Where's my faithful canine companion?"

The Queen of Hell slowly recovered from her apparent shock, and gave him a long, appraising look. "You seem to know a lot, Dean Winchester the Hunter," she mused, "You know Belisarius, and you're actually trying to summon him. You're either suicidally dumb, or just dumb."

"Where is he?" Dean repeated.

The smug smile reappeared on Becky's face. "He's… currently otherwise occupied," she said eventually. "Took himself walkies."

"Yeah, he does that," Dean mused, "Doing what?"

"Doing what Hellhounds do, duh," she rolled her eyes. "What did you think?" She looked at him sideways. "What do you want a Hellhound for, anyway?" she added, "You're more likely to get yourself torn to pieces."

"I got a fugly I gotta take down," Dean said shortly.

Becky seemed suddenly interested. "Really?" she asked casually. "Must be a pretty nasty one if you're prepared to risk summoning a whelp of The Pit." When he didn't speak, she went on in a wheedling tone. "Oh, come on, if it sounds interesting, I might, just might, maybe, be prepared to help you out, just to see what happens."

"Fine," Dean scowled, "There's an Old North Werewolf, a female, been makin' trouble, and I want her dead."

There was an edge to Becky's casual disinterest. "Does this she-wolf have a name?"

Dean glared at her, but finally answered. "Ronnie Shepherd."

"Hmmmmmm," Becky frowned theatrically, "Real nasty, huh?"

"She'll be headed your way as soon as I gank her," he smiled grimly, "And you can see for yourself."

Becky hummed thoughtfully again. "I'll tell you what," she said. "I'll give you the means to track down Belisarius, and you can go find him, and then you can try your summoning again."

Dean eyed her warily. "Yeah?" he drawled, "What's in it for you? Demons don't do favours."

"Entertainment, Hunter-boy!" Becky laughed unpleasantly, "Look, you find him, chances are, he'll tear you to pieces. And your little sidekick here. Hmmmmmm, or not so little," she purred, looking Sam up and down again.

"Meeeeeeep," went Sam.

"The strong, silent type," she mused approvingly, "I like that in a guy. Especially if I don't have to tear his tongue out to get it. So, you two clowns end up torn to pieces – happy ending. For me. Or, let's say you actually summon him, and go after this wolf – if she's as nasty as you say, chances are better than even that she'll tear you to pieces – happy ending again. Or, maybe you'll kill her, and the Hellhound will be lost to bloodlust, and he'll tear you to pieces. Happy ending once more. This is win-win, you get to try your stupid stunt, and I, well, I just get some light relief. I could pack a lunch, make a day of it." She looked at Sam again. "Especially if he's going. I mean," her fingers twitched as if itching to prod at him, "He looks so… firm…"

"Meeeeeeep," went Sam.

"Don't worry bro," Dean assured Sam, "This bitch won't get near you."

"You're brothers?" asked Becky, a note of eagerness creeping into her voice. "Really?" She studied Dean critically. "It could work," she muttered to herself, "Yeah, he's got a hell of a mouth on him, but it could really work…" The light of literary inspiration shone in her eyes. "I mean, two hot guys, both Hunters, both living a life that hardly anybody else knows about, it drives them into each other's arms, in brotherly affection, then just for human comfort, and finally, for something more… juicy…"

"Meeeeeeep!" went Sam.

"…And I could call it 'More Than Brothers'…"

"Meeeeeeep!" went Sam.

"…And that thing about caressing a clavicle, I really like that, I think I'll use it…"

"Meeeeeeep!" went Sam.

"Have you ever considered doing something absolutely evil?" she asked him brightly, "I mean, if you ever decide you just wanna kill somebody, go ahead, and when you come Downstairs, drop my name – my professional one, Despairina, not my human one – and I'll come get you, and you could be, like, my consort, and we could…"

"_MeeeeeeepI_" went Sam.

"Just, leave whatever we need to find Jimi – Belisarius – and go away," ordered Dean. "Before I stab you with this." He hefted the demon-killing knife.

"Pushy, pushy," Becky pouted, "Hunters, you're all just… rude!"

"Go away, Becky," sighed Dean.

"I mean, exorcise this, stab that, holy-water-and-salt the other…"

"I gotta get outta this reality," Dean muttered, "No pay packet is worth this."

"Hey, just before I go, could you, kind of, you know, hug your brother?"

"What?"

"You know, hug him, maybe just caress his clavicle…"

"EXORCISAMUSTEOMNISIMMUNDUSSPIRITISOMNISSATANICAPOTESTAS!" shrieked Sam, launching into the exorcism right without hesitating, or, apparently, breathing.

With a disappointed sigh, Becky 'Despairina' Rosen, Queen of Hell and Satanic Slash, disappeared.

* * *

><p>Poor Sam - perhaps he will take some small comfort in knowing that, in any reality in the Jimiverse, anybody who writes bad fanfic goes to Hell. The genre is not relevant; whatever ship anybody wants to sail is up to them, but if the writing is bad, it's Down South they go, to be tortured by having to write their stories on their phones, and not ever, ever, EVER getting ANY REVIEWS AT ALL...<p> 


	19. Chapter 19

…so then this WHS drone says 'Worry not gibbering scientific type, we have this marvellous online system for managing your chemical inventory' (for the purposes of this discourse, I shall refer to this software as WOFTAM) and I say 'I've seen that you do realise that it's full of bugs and completely unfilt for purpose' and she says 'But it's been MANDATED' and I say 'Well nobody asked me if it would do what we need it to do' and she says 'That's not important, what's important is that it's been ENDORSED by the CHIEF' and I say 'Has the Chief ever worked in a lab' and she says 'That's not important what's important is that it has his PERSONAL APPROVAL' and I say 'Did he ask anybody who works in a lab about this' and she said 'He consulted extensively with his EXECUTIVE ADVISORS' and I say 'Well that explains it' and she says 'It will print out labels so you can use it to relabel anything in the lab that doesn't have a COMPLIANT LABEL' and I just look at her and she says 'So the labels it prints out are the APPROVED WOFTAM FORMAT' and I just look at her and she says 'So you can relabel EVERYTHING in your lab with a NEW APPROVED WOFTAM label' and I say 'You do realise that I have nearly a thousand chemicals in here and they're already labelled' and she says 'That's NOT GOOD ENOUGH if the labels aren't COMPLIANT but WOFTAM will fix that just put a WOFTAM label on everything' and I say 'You do realise that every single item has to be entered manually into WOFTAM and it will take me at least six months working full time to do this provided me and my team drop everything else' and she says 'This is IMPORTANT, just put your research on hold for half a year' and I say 'Does the Chief realise that his entire laboratory will have to shut down for at least six months to do this' and she says 'No your work will continue as normal while we transition to WOFTAM' and I say 'But you just said that I should put my research on hold for six months to prioritise this' and she says 'Look just do them both at once' and I say 'No worries, I'll just jump in my TARDIS then to get a year's work done in six months' and she looked at me funny and said 'What's that' and I say 'It stands for Terribly Annoying Requirements Disrupting Intelligent Science' and didn't I ask you to go away already'…

Bitter? Who, moi? Whatever would make you think that?

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter Nineteen<strong>

Once Becky was gone, Sam turned to his brother with a horrified expression, and finally found his voice.

"My God, what have you done?"

"Got an amulet, it looks like," Dean shrugged, indicating the small item that had appeared on the table. "It looks like a pointer of some sort…"

"Do you realise what this means?" Sam asked in a quavering tone.

"Yeah, I think I gotta use it on a map to find Jimi…"

"I'm not talking about Jimi!" Sam shrieked. "You _told_ her about _us_!"

Dean looked at his brother. "What about us?"

"Who we are, and that we're brothers!" Sam went on, his face haunted. "She didn't know, Dean! She was writing her crap about some vampire! Don't you get it? This was a reality that was blessedly devoid of, of, of wincest! But now…" he shuddered, "Thanks to you, she's gonna start writing it. It'll be all over the internet, and then it will catch on, and other people will start writing it too…"

"Sam, she's evil. She'll inevitably do evil things."

"…And it will be badly written, with no plot and stilted dialogue and terrible expression…"

"All Becky can do is 'badly written', bro."

"…And there will be dangling of participles," Sam lamented, "And abusing of apostrophes, and misusing of contractions, and complete ignoring of punctuation, and, and, and caressing of clavicles…"

Dean put a hand on his brother's shoulder, and pushed him gently to sit down on the sofa. "Sam, I think you need to take a deep breath, dude. Do I have to get you a paper back to breathe into?"

"We have to get out of this reality," moaned Sam, "We have to get out, we have to get out…" Beagle-Jimi whuffed reassuringly, and George rubbed herself against his other side.

"I hear ya," muttered Dean, "Between the paperwork and the fanfiction, we do not want to be here." He examined the small amulet that Becky had left behind. "So, let's get a map, and see if we can find where Jimi is."

With an effort, Sam got control of himself. "He could be anywhere, Dean," he pointed out, scratching both animals behind the ears. "He's a full-blooded Hellhound. There's no guarantee that he'll even be on the physical plane, let alone the planet, and she'd know that. He could be anywhere in space or time, anywhere in all of Creation."

"Well, if he's currently, hanging around on Mars, we'll have to find a way to relay a summons via satellite or something," Dean stated, as though hijacking a digital signal to another planet was a routine activity in any busy Hunter's working week. "Otherwise, I'm hopin' that keepin' her secret identity secret will be enough to stop Queen Becky from screwing us over."

He started with a world map in an atlas, and watched the pointer move across the page to North America. From there it was a case of putting the artefact on maps of ever-increasing resolution, and letting it scoot across the paper.

"There," Dean declared eventually, when the thing stopped moving, "He's here. Well, in our country anyway… yeah, he's in… he's in Montana."

Sam looked bemused. "What's he doing in Montana?"

"I dunno – what does anybody do in Montana? Check out the microbreweries?" shrugged Dean. "Maybe he's on the job, got a Damned soul to pull in. Or maybe he's found a hot bitch."

"Could the Hellhounds be starting to lose focus in this reality, you know, the way they did in ours?" Sam wondered. "Since there doesn't seem to be an identified Hellhound wrangler, uh, wrangling them."

"It don't matter," said Dean confidently, "He's in Montana, so, I'll go get him, then while I'm doin' that you can put in some more research into gettin' us back to our proper reality, then Jimi Senior can sniff out Ronnie, we gank her, then you get us back where we're supposed to be."

"And we're home in time for tea," muttered Sam.

"That would be good," smiled Dean. "So, I'll leave first thing tomorrow."

"You're expected at work tomorrow," Sam pointed out.

"Well, tell 'em I'm not comin' in," Sam waved a hand dismissively.

"Well, what's your excuse?" demanded Sam.

"I dunno, tell 'em I'm sick, or something," Dean replied.

"This reality's Dean Winchester isn't the kind of guy who's gonna let a sniffle slow him down," opined Sam.

"Then tell 'em I've got, uh, I've got dengue fever."

"Dean, dengue is a mosquito-borne virus that is not found in the US."

"Okay, tell 'em I could be incubating ebola."

"Unless you've recently been to north-west Africa, I don't think so."

"How about distemper?"

"Only dogs get that!"

"Oh, hey, I got it. Tell 'em you suspect I got… chikungunya!"

"Chikun… okay, apart from the fact that it hasn't managed to establish in the mosquito population in this country yet, how the hell do you know about chikungunya? Screw that, how the hell do you know how to pronounce it?"

"There was a news story on it a few months back. About cases comin' to the US. And I thought it sounded like a really amazing dance, or something. 'Everybody's doing a brand new dance now, come on baby, do the chikungunya'…"

"Oh, God," sighed Sam, "Look, why don't I just quietly tell Bobby that you slept really badly, had nightmares, and you were finally asleep when I got up and I just didn't have the heart to wake you?"

"Just make sure you concentrate on findin' a way to get us back before I have to show up again," griped Dean, "I don't wanna end up havin' to tell Dr Crowley all about my dreams – he'll just go on about how they're all basically about sex."

"Well, a lot of your dreams are about sex," Sam pointed out. "At least, if the noises you make in your sleep are anything to go by."

"Well, yeah," conceded Dean, "But I don't want to end up talkin' about them with Crowley."

"He's not actually Crowley in this reality," Sam reminded his brother, "And if you don't want to talk to anybody about it, why are you always trying to tell me?"

"Ah, well, that's different," Dean grinned, rapidly warming to the topic, "Because you're my baby brother, and it's my duty to educate you…"

"Dean…"

"And who are you supposed to learn from if not from the Living Sex God?"

"Dean…"

"In fact, a couple of nights ago, I did have this dream about this time I was on a job in Idaho, and there was this girl who was a synchronised swimmer, and man, could she hold her breath…"

"Right," Sam cut in, "Tomorrow, I'm gonna tell Bobby that you couldn't come in to work because of the terrible, terrible, absolutely crippling headache that you developed before you went to bed."

Dean looked bemused. "I haven't got a headache."

Sam picked up a small lamp and smiled sweetly. "Would you_ like_ one?"

**...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... **

Early the next morning, Dean packed a few essentials into the Impala, and prepared to depart…

"I said, no!" he humphed, dropping George back out the window again. Not to be deterred, she merely bounced when she hit the ground, and boinged back in like a particularly persistent tennis ball. "Sam, come and grab this damned cat! Stop it, you! Why can't you be good, like Jimi?" He indicated the dog; Jimi was sitting at Sam's feet, tail wagging, but staying put.

"Didn't you hear what Bobby said?" Sam replied, unable to stop himself grinning, "Cats decide where they're gonna go, and with whom."

"Fine," growled Dean, getting out of the car. George immediately ran up his leg to take up her station on his shoulder. "I'm gonna put her in a box and you can let her out when I'm gone."

"Who do you think you are, Prof Schrödinger?" asked Sam.

"I mean it!" Dean snapped, "I am not doin' a road trip with a cat! Come on, who does a road trip with a cat?"

"You, apparently," Sam laughed, watching as Dean tried to disengage George from his shoulder.

"Aaaaaargh! Not the claws! NOT THE CLAWS! Ohhhh, don't you dare leave claw holes in this jacket!"

George just dug in like a tick on a prairie dog, or possibly a Twilight fan meeting an actor of much ab development but little talent and a remarkable resemblance to a llama, purring loudly the whole time.

"Give it up, bro," Sam suggested, "She's goin' with you. Not surprising, what with you having summoned her, and all."

"I – did – NOT – summon – this –damned – cat!" Dean hissed through clenched teeth. "I didn't! I didn't summon you!"

George let out an adorable chirruping meow, and rubbed against his cheek. He sagged in defeat, returned to the car, and slid in behind the wheel. George curled up on the seat, snuggled into his hip, and prepared to snooze.

"If you get pulled over, you could always tell the cop that she's a carjacker," Sam said brightly.

Dean flipped his brother off as the car rumbled out of the drive.

**...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... **

In the end, Sam decided to go with a combination of headache and nightmares, brought on by the stress of the approaching anniversary of his werewolf attack. Then, because he was still annoyed about Dean launching into yet another particularly salacious Chicks I Have Banged story (in spite of the threat of being brained with a lamp), he dropped in to see Fergus and ask if he'd talk to Dean about some stress management techniques, maybe point him at some yoga or meditation classes, with possible tai chi involvement. He even made him an appointment in Outlook. Fergus beamed widely.

Having wreaked his terrible revenge bwahaha, he returned to his office, Jimi trotting at his heels, to get to work on figuring out how to get them back to their own reality. Back to the start, he thought, he had to go back to when they'd suddenly found themselves respectable salaried professionals. Something had happened – in their own reality, or in the FOOCERverse, that had triggered the switch. So, the last thing they'd done – both realities, apparently – had been to deal with Leslie, the well-meaning but utterly incompetent witch, whose efforts to make people happier had ended in disaster, as such indulgent uses of magic usually did. She'd been tearfully contrite, she'd made them lunch, they'd left. Nothing obvious.

The only difference he could call immediately to mind was that he and Dean had destroyed Leslie's grandmother's grimoire, but in the FOOCERverse it was sitting in Kevin's 'lab', waiting to be examined (and after that hopefully subjected to a controlled occult detonation).

Thoughtfully, he opened the case file on the job that the FOOCERverse Winchesters had completed. There was the initial research, the pulling together of the strange occurrences, the notes describing the job, Sam's report, Dean's report (somewhat shorter, more terse and less tactful than Sam's), a photo of Leslie, a picture of the grimoire (complete with seizure docket number), Kevin's notes on it, and some additional comments from Bobby concerning how it might be safely destroyed.

He was just wondering whether it might be worth looking at the book to try to reverse the spell when he found the most recent entry: it had been destroyed the previous afternoon, with a minimum of collateral damage (Kevin had lost some nostril hairs and an mp3 player that had been within the blast radius refused to play anything except 'It's A Small World After All' in dozens of different languages). So that was a bust…

"Sam," Bobby's voice pulled him from his musings, and he turned to see the old Hunter's slightly lop-sided expression (apparently one of Bobby's eyebrows had attempted to throw itself across Kevin's nose hairs in a futile gesture of self-sacrifice) that was also sad.

"Bobby, what's wrong?" he asked, having a sudden vision of the Impala in a ditch somewhere, with Dean wrapped around the steering wheel, having lost control when George began kneading in his crotch

With a heavy sigh, Bobby dropped into a seat. "I've just had some bad news, son," he said, "You remember Andy? Andrew Jaeger?"

Sam's mind raced, trying to think what might be the story in this reality. "Yeah, he got bitten by a werewolf," seemed safest.

"And if you and your brother hadn't been there to gank it, he'd be dead," Bobby smiled briefly. "Yeah. He's been doin' so well, he managed to keep himself contained for the full moon from his second shapeshift. Fastest integration we've ever documented. In fact, he'd just been accepted as a rookie into the ROIDs…"

"ROIDs?" echoed Sam unthinkingly, his mind racing as Bobby gave him a strange look. "I mean, isn't that kind of demeaning, using it that way, implying that they're, you know, brainless monsters? I just don't want us to end up, you know, having to do Equity and Diversity refresher training."

Bobby chuckled and shook his head. "You're probably right. O' course, they don't help matters much, callin' themselves the Dog Squad, and using 'ROID Rage' as their motto…" his face became serious again. "Sam, Andy's dead."

Sam gawped at him. "Dead?"

Bobby nodded heavily. "I know he'd become one of Dean's best buddies, and this is gonna hit your brother hard. I could come to your place, and tell him…"

"No, it's okay, I'll tell him," Sam cut in. "He'd prefer that." Then, because he couldn't resist, he added, "It'll be easier for him to, you know, drop the he-man act, and cry it out if you're not there."

"I suspect you're right," observed Bobby. "But there's something more." A horrible suspicion formed in Sam's mind as he watched Bobby's face become grim. "Last night, Andy was mauled by another werewolf."

"Another… " Sam thought it through. "But… it's the full moon, so if it was another werewolf, it would've had to have been able to let him out… which means, it must've had control of the shapeshift. And it must've been pretty damned nasty. I mean, Andre- Andy is a… I mean, he was a big boy on four legs."

"Topped seven feet and three hundred pounds," Bobby confirmed.

Sam's face became as grim as his boss's. "There's only one werewolf I know of who fits the bill, one who has control, and could tear an alpha male apart at the full moon."

Bobby nodded. "Forensics confirmed it. Looks like Veronica Shepherd has broken cover."

* * *

><p>The question of which circle of Hell writers of truly dreadful fanfics go to is a tricky one. (A reminder: you don't go to Hell for writing slash; you go to Hell for writing any genre badly.) Should the ones who write bad slash go to the Second Circle, destination of those overcome by lust? Do writers of bad hc end up in the outer ring of the Seventh Circle, fate of those who gloried in violence? Or perhaps the writers of cloyingly dreadful fluff go to the Third Circle of gluttony, since they are determined to rot everybody's teeth?

I will presumably go to the Sixth Circle, where heretics are sent, or possibly the Eighth Circle's first level where panderers (and presumably therefore review addicts) are punished. Let's take an average (6 + 8.1)/2 = 7.05. So, yeah, I'll end up in the Seven-Point-Zero-Fiveth Circle Of Hell. Drop in sometime. Bring a plate. Watch out for the Minotaur.


	20. Chapter 20

…so I get the minions together and by way of an amazing effort we manage to do REMEDIATION which means we relabel just about every single damned thing in the lab which is kind of unbelievable since these things range in size from 5 litre bottles to tiny little jars containing only a few milligrams and then the WHS drone comes in and says okay now we are going to audit your lab and I say come at me bro and she comes in with her sidekick and her clipboard and she pronounces that lots of our labels are NOT COMPLIANT and I say WTF we've just replaced everything with the WOFTAM labels that you said were COMPLIANT and she says ORLY and I say YA RLY and she says well they are missing information and are not COMPLIANT so I say well that's a problem with WOFTAM then and she says we'll talk to the WOFTAM wranglers and I say good and she says meanwhile you can get on with REMEDIATING your labels so they are COMPLIANT and I say but you just told me the WOFTAM one's aren't compliant and she says well you can get the extra information and print it out on labels and stick those on things and I say so you want me to get some printable labels and then make my own labels in order to remediate the remediation and she says exactly and I say look I think you really should just go away so I go and look up labels to print my own labels to fix what WOFTAM screwed up and I say hey I need to order these labels and the Procurement drone says you can't have them they're not on the APPROVED STATIONERY ITEMS LIST and I say but I need them to remediate my remediation to make my chemicals COMPLIANT and she says well put together a business case and I say you want me to spend a fortnight drafting a complex document justifying the purchase of less than a hundred dollars' worth of printable labels that I need to bring my lab into compliance with WHS regs and she says that's the PROCESS for purchase of items that are not APPROVED STATIONERY and I say so you want me to apply to the Chief to have him approve his own instructions and she says yes that's the PROCESS and I say do you understand how much I am paid as a senior scientist this hardly counts as an appropriate and efficient spending of what is after all public money and is fiscally irresponsible and she says it's not my job to worry about whether it's fiscally responsible it's the PROCESS and I say the Ethics and Fraud briefings made it pretty clear that it's everybody's responsibility and she says I am concerned with the PROCESS if you are concerned about the money take it up with FINANCE then I decide that I'd better go away because she's sitting in this office with all this highly combustible paper around her and I am feel suddenly terribly terribly incendiary…

What, me, bitter?

* * *

><p><span><strong>Chapter Twenty<strong>

As soon as Bobby left, Sam dived back into the FOOCER database, and quickly located the page for ROID, the Registered Occult Individuals Division. It's crest was a bat flying across a full moon, with a pentacle in the background and the motto 'ROID Rage' across the bottom.

A quick scan of the page confirmed that FOOCER recruited what were technically fuglies who had the self-control and the skills to be Hunters. Werewolves, vampires, a couple of rugarus, a zombie named Reg, and, in one photo announcing a citation, he recognised Arjan the werebeaver (he'd know those teeth anywhere). Andrew had been their most recent recruit. Only now, he was dead.

Sam dropped his head into his hands. This reality was just… wrong. Becky was Queen of Hell, the King of Hell was Fergus the counsellor, Ronnie was no more than a mad dog who needed to be put down for the safety of the general public, and a genuinely nice guy was dead because… just because.

He picked up his cell, and dialled his brother.

**...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... **

"That's two diners you've got us thrown out of," griped Dean. "How the hell am I supposed to eat if you keep gettin' us thrown out of diners?"

George just looked at him placidly, and let out a small meow.

"Did you see the peach pie in the cabinet at that last one?" he asked mournfully. "That was a high pie. They definitely made the pie higher. George Dubya Bush would love that pie!"

George settled more comfortably on his shoulder.

"I'm gonna start tellin' people you're a wart, or something," he muttered resentfully.

George didn't seem too concerned; she delicately extended one hind leg, and began to launder her ladygarden.

"All this and manners too," Dean sighed, heading back to the Impala. "Why can't you just wait in the car? My Jimis, Senior and Junior, always waited in the car. It was, like, their home, their safe happy place."

George paused in her self-sanitising and gave him a long cool look, thereby managing to impart the opinion that it was all well and good for dogs to be happy with whatever humans gave them, but she was a cat, and cats were an entirely different kettle of piscine delicacies, therefore she would decide what she deemed to be her 'happy place', and right now, securing herself to his person was that place.

"It aint normal, is all I'm sayin'," Dean sighed, opening the door. "If you were a bird, yeah, okay, or a rat, even, that I'd get, maybe even a small reptile, but you're a cat! What is it with you, and perching on my shoulder? Were you a parrot in one of your nine lives, or something?"

As he slid behind the wheel, George removed herself to shotgun, and resumed her toilette. Before he could start the car, his cell buzzed.

"Hey, Sammy… oh, do you have to do that?"

"What?" demanded his brother's voice. "What now?"

"Not you, bro," Dean sighed, "It's George, she's washin' her… self at me."

"Listen, I got some news," Sam launched without preamble. "Ronnie's broken cover."

Dean was suddenly alert. "What? Where?"

He heard Sam sigh. "In Oregon, I guess. She… Dean, she killed Andrew yesterday."

Dean's mouth fell open. "Huh? As in, Andrew Jaeger? As in, Mr I'd-Rather-Sprain-My-Ankle-Than-Step-On-A-Mouse?"

"There's this group of fuglies who work for FOOCER," Sam explained, "They're like the monster squad. He joined after he got bitten, but he was just a rookie; she attacked him while he was shapeshifted, and tore him apart." He paused. "I can't get at all the details yet, but it looks like she, uh… okay, that's weird…"

"What's weird?" demanded Dean, "I mean, apart from the fact that we're in a reality where the Queen Of Hell is the Queen of Impossibly Bad Writing, the King Of Hell is a shrink, the paperwork just to open the stationery cupboard is enough to crush an elephant and you can be lynched for not knowing your Mission from your Vision, what's weird?"

"Well, it's…" Sam sounded hesitant. "Up until now, whenever she's attacked a man and, uh, basically molested him, she's forced herself onto him, but in this case… it couldn't work."

"Huh?"

"Think about it," Sam went on, Dean hearing the rattle of keys, "You've seen the size of her human self – she's no anorexic supermodel. In humanoid form, she could inflict herself onto just about any guy short of a six-eight Olympic weightlifter, just by brute force."

"Yeah? Look, I still don't understand how that works…"

"Let's not get into the mechanics, Dean," Sam sighed, "Just accept that physiological arousal is not always under conscious control, and it is NOT the same thing as consent. So, in human form, given her inherent human build, then add the wolf to that, most guys would be toast. But in her wolf form, she's built, but up against Andrew, given the discrepancy in size, the werewolf anatomy…"

"Are you sayin' that she… she didn't actually force him?" Dean asked incredulously.

"According to this, no," Sam confirmed, "She couldn't force him – but she could entice him. It was the full moon, when he'd have least control over his conscious self – he locked himself in his basement for containment – so after she let him out, all she had to do was wave her pheromones at him, and the wolf would take over, so to speak…"

"Grab him by the libido, and his dick and balls will follow," muttered Dean. "Great. So, what, first she showed him a good time, then she tore him to pieces? What is she, some sort of Black Widow?"

"Given what we know about how a pack structure works, I'd be willing to take a guess," Sam offered. "I'm guessing that she asked him to Den, to bond formally, and he knocked her back. Whether in this reality, she's just not his type, or he managed to retain just enough cognition to know that she was bad news, I got no idea, but that would fit."

"Hell hath no fury like a woman – or a she-wolf, apparently – scorned," noted Dean glumly. "And I thought I had a problem the time that woman dumped a bowl of spaghetti over me. Or the one who tipped a bucket of mayonnaise over me. Or the one who threw cowpats at me. Jeez, what is it with the crazy ones who suddenly decide they want to stampede to the altar, you find a frisky woman, you make it clear that you're only lookin' for a good time, then the next thing you know, she's talkin' about reception venues and bridesmaids' shoes and makin' her own invitations and namin' the first one after Great Uncle Prendergast…"

"How far out are you?" interrupted Sam, with an eyeroll that Dean heard over the line.

"A few hours yet," Dean replied, "I've been tryin' to find somewhere to stop to eat, but _somebody_," he glared at the cat, "_Somebody_ who's name begins with G insists that she wants to sit on my shoulder, and keeps gettin' us thrown out of diners, because she's not very convincing as a parakeet."

"Just say she's a service animal," suggested Sam.

"A what?"

"A service animal, an emotional support animal," Sam explained, "You need her to cope with day-to-day life, due to your PTSD."

"What PTSD?" demanded Dean. "I don't have PTSD!"

"According to Fergus, you do," Sam countered, a note of smugness in his voice. "Oh, yeah, by the way, when you get back here, you have an appointment with him, to discuss your stress levels."

"What?" spluttered Dean. "Don't you dare go makin' appointments for me, Francis!"

"Well I had to do something," Sam shot back tartly, "Since you were so affected by your nightmares that you couldn't come in to work today."

"Well, go unmake it!" snapped Dean.

"Oh, I couldn't," cooed Sam, "You should've seen the happy look on his face, the warm fuzzy glow he got from thinking that he was goin' to do something to help you, I'd have to have a heart of stone to break that appointment…"

"If you don't, when I get back, it won't be your heart I'm gonna break," Dean growled. "As soon as I get Jimi, I'll pick you up, then we'll set him on the bitch's trail, and do this reality a favour. You making any progress in getting us back to a reality that doesn't suck quite as hard as this one?"

"Not so far," Sam admitted, "I've been looking at the case notes for Leslie the incompetent witch, since that was the last thing we – and the FOOCERverse Winchesters – were dealing with before we landed here. There's a lot more info here than we had, somebody really put a lot of time into the case notes."

"This reality involves far too much paperwork," Dean growled, "Stay with it. I want out before I gotta go bare my soul and sing Kumbaya with Crowley."

"I'll stick at it," Sam promised. "Sure you don't wanna stay here long enough for our trip to Disneyland? Fergus and Bobby are expecting their ears, after all."

Dean made a suggestion not only implying that Sam was illegitimate, but he told him where to go, how to get there, and opined that upon arrival his brother should perform a vulgar biological function upon himself with a plastic headdress intended to represent gigantic mouse pinnae.

"I'll take that as a no, then," Sam sounded remarkably unfazed by the threat of a Mickey Mouse suppository, "Keep in touch."

"Just make with our return ticket, bitch," instructed Dean. He put down his phone, sighed, and started the engine, glancing at George. "Sam says I should say tell people you're my emotional support animal," he relayed. "Can you do any tricks, like, fetch a packet of chips, or something?"

George rolled over with an adorable purring humph, assumed a posture that nobody human could copy without years of practising a particularly strenuous form of yoga, and resumed her intimate ablutions.

"Yeah, I got PTSD. I got Pussycat Touching Self Disgustingly."

Dean sighed, then eased the Impala back onto the road, musing that if diners kept throwing him out, then maybe George's act would at least be acceptable in a certain type of strip club, and they might have bar snacks.

* * *

><p>What is it with animals that they have this innate instinct for the most inappropriate behaviour at the most inappropriate time? The dogs wait until dinner, then sit and lave their ladybits. The cat used to wait until we were in bed, then clean her rear end. Even my male water dragon used to wait until somebody was sitting in the phone chair, by the enclosure, before proceeding to molest his cagemates...<p> 


End file.
